After days of marches and speeches, impromptu Durham protest starts small and stays small
In this week of protests in Durham, there have been days and nights when hundreds took to the streets in organized marches, with leaders and defined goals. Other gatherings grew spontaneously and organically, starting with a few dozen people. Friday was one of the latter, and didn’t get much bigger.
Nothing was publicly announced or promoted Friday, but just before 6:30 p.m., a group of about 20 people walked to Durham police headquarters chanting and holding signs that say “Black Lives Matter” and “There comes a time when silence is betrayal” and “Love ends hate.”
“We are a small group but I think it is better to do something rather than sit in silence,” said Julie Hansford Franco, 44, of Siler City.
Franco said she initiated Friday evening’s impromptu event because she felt compelled to take action. She works as a mental health therapist at the Center for Child and Family Health in Durham.
The gathering came hours after a summit Friday afternoon at The Fruit, an exhibition space in downtown Durham, with Durham artist Skip Gibbs and Duke basketball staffer Nolan Smith meeting with Durham Police chief C.J. Davis, Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead, Mayor Steve Schewel and City Council Member Mark-Anthony Middleton.
The group of about 10 started walking from the center on West Chapel Hill Street to CCB Plaza, picking up more protesters as they walked. After a short stop at headquarters, they headed to the Durham Police Department.
The police station and jail have been the destination of almost all the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, regardless of their origin. The protests have had more in common than that: a hands-off approach from police and — with one exception — no property damage and no injuries.
Monday night was the exception in Durham, when vandals damaged or spray-painted a few storefronts, late in the evening and long after most protesters had gone home. There was also a dicey moment Wednesday, when a large group was lying in Main Street in front of the police station and a car eluded the police blocking traffic by coming from a side street. It turned around before it got to the protesters. That became a topic of contention between protesters and police.
Some protests have had concrete goals, like the group led by Gibbs that blocked the Durham Freeway on Monday until Davis and Birkhead agreed to meet with leaders of the group.
Friday gathering
The group on Friday trod the familiar path east on Main Street to the police station, then back west to the Durham County Jail, then back to CCB Plaza.
At the Kress Building, an old department store converted long ago into condominiums, residents left a cooler of bottled water for the marchers and hung messages of support on the windows facing the street.
“We are the Kress Community and we are listening,” one of the signs read.
A closer look at the messages shows calls for action, from “Walk with us” to “Call you congressman” to “Speak out! Speak the truth! This fight is far from over.”
People also wrote messages of support, “I am listening and learning” and “We are all together in this.”
When they returned to CCB Plaza, a few people were hanging out, some holding signs at the plaza as music blared from a large speaker.
Mya Mercado, 27, of Durham set up the speaker for a pop-up show with the help of other groups. Mercado said the show would include live performances and painting, “just to keep a positive perspective on this protest. Keep it from turning sour.”
Even without any formal planning, the general concept of the protests brought all kinds of people downtown Friday. With his daughter Leota in his arms, Dante Strobino, 38, said he was there to support the protests “because white silence is violence.”
“I think it’s our job to support whatever tactics people want to use to speak out their anger and to be out here in any form of protest people feel is necessary to get the attention,” Strobino said as Leota sucked on a sippy cup. “If it wasn’t for all the mass demonstrations and rebellions, and frankly for all the property damage, it wouldn’t be such a national conversation right now around the necessity to not only defund but abolish the police.”
Ji’Lil Michael, 19, and Jydia Faucette, 18, both from Burlington, fell in with the group as it marched Friday evening. It was the second protest for Michael, but Faucette has been protesting since Saturday.
“I came out to protest tonight because I feel like what’s going on in the world is wrong,” Michael said. “I feel like everybody’s life is important, but right now the black [people] really need support from everybody.”
Danielle James, 31, was one of the protesters who showed up later in the night. She works at Glas, a neon sign shop in Raleigh, and brought a neon sign that said, “History is watching.”
“I am a tradesperson and I make neon signs, and so sometimes it feels like, some things have to be beat over people’s heads, and neon’s a really good tool to do that with,” James said.
A little after 8 p.m., as darkness started to fall, a group of nine people who had been chanting while marching down Corcoran Street joined the group listening to music at CCB Plaza, substantially reinforcing its numbers. Music continued to play. They took a group photo.
For the first time in several days, the Durham police had yet to see the need to tweet a traffic advisory.
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 7:52 PM.
