Smaller Protests On Green Feature Dialogue, Failed Flag Burning

As Sunday’s protest rally against police brutality continued at the New Haven Police Department headquarters Sunday afternoon, a group of college students and an ​“outlaw” found their own ways to address racism in a far smaller gathering on the New Haven Green.

Dershai Williams, a 21 year-old from Hamden, planned a 4 p.m. protest on the Green as part of the national response to the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Williams and friends started their protest a little late after marching for hours with a larger New Haven rally that started at noon.

While they were walking towards the Green, a protester who would not provide his name and said he was from Florida pulled down the U.S. flag at the center of the park. Then he tried to set it on fire.

An Outlaw’s Methods

“All lives seem not to matter anymore. Black people and white people fought for this flag,” the solitary protester said. ​“I’m here to make a statement.”

“I’m an outlaw,” the protester said, when asked for his name.

Those sitting on benches around the flag rose and cleared out.

“I’m not going to lie, I get the concept of how he feels. The George Floyd situation was the last straw,” one said. ​“I just don’t want to be around when it happens. If he lights that flag on fire, everybody around here is going to jail.”

After a few minutes, the protester gave up on trying to burn the flag with his lighter and unhooked it from the flagpole. He hoisted the Connecticut flag back up to half mast and placed the U.S. flag in the trash.

Later, a passerby took the flag out of the trash and called the police. The ​“outlaw” had already left by that point.

A Circle Of Friends

Around that time, Williams and friends arrived on the Green. Their plan was to pass around a small megaphone and let protest participants speak.

“We’re going to try to keep it peaceful. We don’t want anyone to get hurt,” said Hamden 22 year-old Marnaisjah Butler (pictured above with the megaphone).

The group intermixed chants with stories of their own experiences of racism.

“What’s his name? George Floyd. What’s her name? Breonna Taylor,” they chanted. ​“What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now.”

Passersby joined in the call and responses, and a few joined the group of friends. One protester walking from the direction of the police station opened his backpack and handed out snacks to the group on the Green.

The protest stayed small. The protesters took a knee and then sat on the grass, discussing racism and their determination to keep fighting it.

Hamden 22 year-old Delano Wood (pictured listening on the left) talked about a time when he was walking home from middle school and was stopped by a police officer. The officer asked where he was coming from and asked what was in his backpack, Wood said. After looking through the backpack and finding nothing but books, the officer told him he would be lucky to make it to 18, he recalled.

Williams said that she remembers being followed around stores as a child, because employees thought she might steal something.

“It made me feel horrible,” Williams said.

More recently, she was pulled over by a police officer in Ansonia, she said. She said that the police department there had a reputation for being racist. She did not say that anything untoward happened in that interaction, but the fear that she would be shot by the officer has stuck with her.

“I was so scared. I didn’t even reach for my license. I was afraid I would be on the news that night,” Williams said. ​“Nobody should ever have to feel that way.”

Nashawn Mention (pictured with hands raised on the right), who is 19 and lives in New Haven, said that she knows Williams and the others are friends from Gateway Community College. She told the group that she grew up in Georgia and attended a mostly white school. She said that she experienced constant discrimination at school. When she moved to Connecticut, she was told that she ​“talks white.”

Another protester, Eshe Ward (pictured above standing behind Mention), advocated for wealth-building in New Haven’s African-American and Latino communities as a way to stop gentrification and discrimination. Ward said that attending Virginia State University, a historically black university, was a relief from racism.

“It was the only time I didn’t think about who I was,” Ward said.

The conversation ranged from a comparison between police treatment of white supremacist Dylann Roof and African-American protesters to early British treatment of Native Americans.

“If you think about it, it really makes you depressed and sad that maybe you would have a better life if you had lighter skin,” Butler said.

“Everyone here today, thank you for coming. They’re not going to stop killing us unless we make them stop,” Mention said. ​“Black lives matter!”