“There’s two worlds,” said one community activist who has been arrested several times at nonviolent protests. “And we’ve got to fix that.”
The relatively small number of arrests after a mob stormed the Capitol left many environmental activists shaken on Thursday — and wanting answers. Why did so many people who brought destruction into the home of American democracy simply walk away after doing so much damage, not just to a building but to the nation’s sense of itself? The Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., a minister and community activist who heads the Hip Hop Caucus, a civil and human rights group, called the sight of the rioters being led out of the Capitol seemingly without repercussions “heartbreaking.” Mr. Yearwood has a long history of protest on a range of issues and has been arrested, and even beaten, as a result. “We know we’re going to go through that punishment” as part of fighting for cleaner energy, for environmental justice, for a better world, he said. “Up until yesterday, I thought, ‘This is how it’s done. You stop business, you’re going to be arrested, you’re going to be treated this way,” he said. “Yesterday changed all that,” he said. Some rioters carried weapons, injured police and committed acts of vandalism, and “certain police allowed them to walk away.” “There’s two worlds,” he said. “And we’ve got to fix that.” Jacquelyn Gill, a scientist at the University of Maine’s climate change institute, said on Twitter that “More people were arrested in the nonviolent 2018 climate change protests at the Capitol than were arrested in the violent insurrection at the Capitol in 2021.” Washington protests have long been a part of climate change activism and other movements, and so have arrests. In the fall of 2019 and into January 2020, the actress Jane Fonda attended weekly protests known as Fire Drill Fridays to bring attention to climate change.
