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Date: 6/10/2020
EAST LONGMEADOW – Between and estimated 300 to 400 people gathered at the baseball diamond in the center of town on June 7 to voice their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
The protest was peaceful. One East Longmeadow police cruiser was parked across the street at the library observing the group.
Former East Longmeadow Select Board member Angela Thorpe was among the speakers. “I’m here because I’m tired. It’s time to stand up and scream. ‘I can’t breathe.’”
Thorpe was overtaken by emotion as she recalled watching the video showing the last eight minutes and 46 seconds of George Floyd’s life.
“I watched and I cried,” she said.
She asserted that there are more good police officers than bad, but when good officers are standing by they take on the “stench of the bad.”
She added, “Silence is acceptance.”
Thorpe added, “I pray where there is a choice between hatred and love we chose love.”
The Reverend Dr. Terrlyn L. Curry Avery, the pastor of the Martin Luther King Community Presbyterian Church in Springfield, said, “We are all here because we can’t breathe.”
Briefly recounting American history, she decried the fate of Native Americans, as well as African Americans and spoke of the “stench of a history with violence.”
Attending rallies isn’t enough, she said. She called on people to be an “anti-racist,” and challenge racism when a person encounters it.
She asked the crowd, “Do you want to be free?” and then answered the question: “nobody is free until everybody has changed.”