GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) — Eight minutes of silence marked the beginning of Green Bay’s latest Black Lives Matter protest.
“All of these people out here we are, we’re standing together, ” Chauncey Hughes, an organizer said. “We want change.”
Those eight minutes were just about the only moments of silence for the duration of the protest.
“We’re all out here chanting, we’re hurting, we’re grieving, we want the people to hear us and feel us, not just in one ear and out the other,” organizer Dajahnae Williams said.
In the crowd, purple t-shirts represented family and friends of Jonathon Tubby, the man shot and killed by Green Bay Police in 2018.
Charges were not filed against involved officers following an investigation by the Wisconsin DOJ.
“For all the other families that are suffering across the United States, we hope that these demonstrations or protests or whatever you want to call them make the change that everybody can live peacefully and we don’t have to do stuff like this again,” Sue Doxtator, Tubby’s aunt, said.
Those at the helm of the demonstration say this is just the beginning,
“We got their attention and now that we have it we have to start implementing changes,” Williams said, “which means us working with the council to start implementing these bills to really get equality and equity.”
The group has already worked with local leaders to make one big change, the lifting of a city-wide curfew in Green Bay.
“It was everything to get that curfew lifted,” Hughes said, “because I don’t think that group punishment for the acts of some young, immature individuals should be imposed on an entire city.”
They’re free to make their voices heard, and to continue moving forward.
“We have all these different ages and all these different races out here marching and standing with us,” Williams said, “and we want this to be not just a thing in the moment but also a thing moving forward, what’re we going to do to change?”
