Sam Gurwitt Photo
New Haven and Hamden Saturday saw the fastest-moving protest of the spring.
About 200 people took to streets that have seen no shortage of protests in the last few weeks. It was one of four protests to shut down parts of Dixwell Avenue in the last week and a half. This time, protesters marched not with feet but with wheels.
The bicycle protest doubled as a wellness ride, intended both to protest police brutality and to get people out riding bikes and taking care of their physical and mental wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At 10:30 a.m., people began to arrive at the parking lot of Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden wearing bike shorts and all manner of helmets
Charles Bryant, a Hamden resident, and New Haven firefighter OJ Lewis (both pictured above) organized the ride. Bryant said the two friends started riding seriously together about a year ago. They want to get more people, especially in the black community, into riding. They recently started an Instagram page: @freedom525ryderz. The 525 is for May 25, the day George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
Some rode up from New Haven earlier in the morning. Some came from further afield.
One group of friends (pictured above) had met cycling around the area. Now they go out for rides all over the state, and the country, periodically. They live throughout the region: in Guilford, Southington, Milford, Easton, Hamden, and Cheshire.
Lynn Meekins, Juanita Jeziorny, Christina Williams, and Jacqueline Everson don’t ride as frequently. “We’re novices,” said Meekins. “We’re here for the cause.”
A little past 11, the group began to roll down the Sleeping Giant parking lot driveway, following a New Haven Parks and Recreation pickup truck that the city had offered to help carry supplies. Hamden police officers stopped traffic, blocking anyone from going in the south-bound lane of Whitney Avenue.
As they rode south, bikers spread out, with those in the back falling behind. At the intersection with Dixwell, they stopped to regroup. They continued down Dixwell, passing the Hamden Police Department, Hamden Government Center, the Farmington Canal Trail, and Hamden Plaza. They stopped again at Hamden High School.
Once the riders had crossed under the Wilbur Cross Parkway, which protesters had shut down a week before, the honks of cars showing their support grew more frequent.
Some riders took their hands off the handlebars to raise fists in the air. Frederic Morris (pictured above) wore a shirt displaying the number 8:46 — the minutes a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck to kill him.
Joe Ugly (pictured above) didn’t need either hand to ride.
The cyclists stopped again at the Hamden-New Haven border to regroup once more, then rode to the bottom of Dixwell, where they continued onto Elm Street.
A little over nine miles south of their starting point, the riders hopped off their bikes at the flagpole on the New Haven Green. It was the first of three protests that would use that space Saturday. About two hours later, a group of protesters calling for the dismantling of the Yale Police Department started marching from there.
For some, the ride ended there. Others got back on their bikes and rode the nine miles back to Sleeping Giant.
I had been supporting the marches, the protest, various acts of civil disobedience virtual. When I first heard about this event on FB and then again while visiting Devils Gear bike shop from John, I decided that I would make this ride personal and be a part of this event physically, and I did. I am glad that I was there, that I let my presence be known that I too am emotionally and physically invested in what is happening to my people, to me, to our communities and our country each and EVERY day! This gathering in person was quite emotiional to me in every sense of the word, it really brought tears to my eyes and directed my mind straight to Briana Taylor, Charles Floyd, Tamar Rice, Sandra Bland (who's responsible for her death is still questionable) and so so many others. Even the prophetic orations of James Baldwin, takes me to why we have truly not grown to be a country excepting of all of her people.
It is time to take a stand AMERICA, the melting pot of the world. Are we going to lead by example or are We going to fall like many of the great societies in history? I certainly hope not the latter.