Minutes after stepping off the plane in Minneapolis, Nupol Kiazolu arrived at the site where a police officer had knelt on George Floyd’s neck.
Minutes after stepping off the plane in Minneapolis, Nupol Kiazolu arrived at the site where a police officer had knelt on George Floyd’s neck.
Kiazolu, the 19-year-old president of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, had been in New York watching videos of protests in Minneapolis when she decided she could no longer sit back. Kiazolu and her team had been working virtually with Black Lives Matter organizers in Minnesota, but she soon decided that her peers in Minneapolis needed help.
On Friday, Kiazolu and nine other members of BLM Greater New York traveled to Minneapolis to «stand in solidarity with the people of Minnesota,» Kiazolu told CNN.
Nupol Kiazolu, protesting in Minneapolis on Friday.
From Friday to Sunday, she and her peers protested on the ground in Minneapolis. They joined activists across the nation, who took to the streets in honor of Floyd and other black lives lost. Tatiana Washington of Milwaukee took her work to a virtual space while Thandiwe Abdullah spoke out in Los Angeles.
There’s no one blueprint for demonstrating in the name of Black Lives Matter. Kiazolu says the decentralization of the movement is part of its beauty.
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Since the inception of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, activists around the country have adopted their own techniques and means for demonstrating in response to the events in their own communities.
«Black Lives Matter is not an isolated cause,» Abdullah said. Abdullah, whose mother is also an activist, has been advocating for black lives as long as she can remember. «The liberation of black people is about the liberation of all oppressed people: other people of color, poor folks, immigrants, queer folks and trans folks. I think that message gets lost oftentimes.»
These demonstrations fall against a backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, throughout which African Americans have died at disproportionately higher rates than all other racial groups.
«I don’t have the luxury and privilege as a black woman to sit in my house and do nothing. Whether I sit at home or go outside, I can be killed because of the color of my skin,» Kiazolu said. «That’s why, in the middle of a global pandemic, black organizers are forced to go outside.»
Protesters raise their hands in front of police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd.
While Kiazolu and her team were active in Minneapolis last weekend, she told CNN that they did not take part in the violence, looting or vandalism. State and local officials have noted that many of the protesters in the city over the weekend were from out of town, leading to a shift away from peaceful demonstrations.
«I didn’t go down there to do that,» Kiazolu said.
Still, she and her team faced what she called a «chaotic» encounter with the police on Friday night.
The group was walking to find their car after 16 hours of protesting when they heard store alarms sounding and people screaming, and saw a line of police about a block away.
«We heard the officers screaming, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying,» Kiazolu said. Eventually, they made out the words, «Stop or we’ll shoot,» at which point the group stopped in their tracks.
«If we had taken half a step, if we didn’t hear that by the time we got a little bit closer, we would have been the next hashtag,» she said.
After spending three days in Minneapolis, Kiazolu and her team noticed that things were escalating in New York City.
«We were looking on the phone like, ‘Whoa, whoa, people are burning stuff in Brooklyn,’ » Kiazolu said. «We rendered our assistance on the ground in Minnesota, but we had to come back home.»
On Sunday night, Kiazolu and her team traveled back to New York and headed to their own community’s nonviolent protest, The Freedom March NYC.
Twice within three days, the group went straight from an airport to a protest.
Activism off the streets
In Milwaukee, Tatiana Washington found that many black youths, especially those who are unable to protest on the ground, lacked a space to come together and grieve.
Last Thursday, the 19-year-old immunocompromised gun violence prevention activist tweeted out a call: «ALL BLACK YOUTH: Message me if you wanna join a Zoom with other Black youth. Let’s grieve and talk next steps. Tomorrow at 5PM CST!!!!»
The next day, about 30 people, some of whom Washington didn’t know, joined the call from across the country, including young people from Minneapolis, Washington, DC, California and Texas.
The call convened people of «all different backgrounds,» Washington said. «Not everyone is involved in activism or organizing, not everyone will want to organize a rally, but I see a lot of black youth are really angry with what’s happening and they want to take action…. Collectively, I’m seeing a lot of my peers, a lot of my friends, just heartbroken right now.»
Washington said she plans to have more calls soon.
She said she is not any less angry about the death of George Floyd, but she said she has a different set of «abilities» than those who protest on the ground.
«I am proud because I see black youth stepping up. I do feel like this is a time when things are actually going to change. I feel this movement changing. It’s bittersweet, I would say,» she added.
Photos:Protests across America after George Floyd’s death
Protesters march in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday, June 2.
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Protesters walk off the Manhattan Bridge in New York after being blocked by police on June 2. Police were on both sides of the bridge as peaceful protesters were in the middle. Eventually the protesters were allowed to walk away and leave the area.
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Protesters lie down in an intersection, blocking traffic in Coralville, Iowa, on June 2.
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Police officers hold a perimeter June 2 behind a metal fence that was recently erected in front of the White House.
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Protesters ride a bus through a street in Atlanta on June 2. The windshield reads «use your voice.»
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Demonstrators raise their hands in the air while protesting in front of City Hall in Los Angeles on June 2.
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Protesters gather in Houston on June 2. Tens of thousands of people marched to City Hall to shout George Floyd’s name. Houston is Floyd’s hometown.
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Protesters raise their fists in New York City on June 2.
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Members of the National Guard watch as demonstrators march along Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles on June 2.
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Protesters on horseback rally in downtown Houston on June 2.
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A group of clergy members stops and prays during a march to a George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis on June 2.
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Ericka Ward-Audena stands with her 7-year-old daughter, Elle, during a protest in Washington on June 2. «I wanted my daughter to see the protests,» she said. «It’s really important. I’ve gotten a million questions from her because of it.»
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Protesters gather near Manhattan’s Foley Square in New York on June 2.
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Protesters rally in Bethesda, Maryland, on Tuesday, June 2.
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A resident of Clarksville, Tennessee, holds up a sign that says «I can’t breathe» across the street from protesters on June 2.
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Protesters rally outside the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on June 2.
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Passengers hold up their fists in solidarity with protesters as they drive by the Wood County Courthouse in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, on June 2.
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A person holds a «Black Lives Matter» sign as a heavy cloud of tear gas and smoke rises in Seattle on Monday, June 1.
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People attend a candlelight vigil at Queens Park in New York on June 1.
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Two men kneel in front of a line of Kentucky state troopers during a protest in Louisville on June 1.
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A firework thrown by a protester explodes at the feet of police in Riverside, California, on June 1.
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A woman cries out after being exposed to tear gas near the White House on June 1. Thousands of people were peacefully protesting near Lafayette Park when police started to shoot rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bangs into the crowd. They were clearing the block to allow President Donald Trump to walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op.
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Security forces push protesters away from the White House in order to allow President Trump to make a visit to a nearby church on June 1.
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Law enforcement officers kneel with protesters in Atlanta on June 1.
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A protester is doused with water and milk after being hit with pepper spray from law enforcement in Washington on June 1.
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Protesters gather at the J. E. B. Stuart statue in Richmond, Virginia, on June 1.
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A demonstrator holds her hands up while she kneels in front of police officers at City Hall in Anaheim, California, on June 1.
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Terrence Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, visits a makeshift memorial in Minneapolis on June 1. «He was barely able to walk,» CNN’s Sara Sidner reported. «He had to have two people on either side of him holding him up as he tried to make his way to the spot.» He later spoke to the crowd and called for peace.
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Protesters gather in New York’s Times Square on June 1.
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Protesters burn materials during a protest in Washington early on June 1.
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Police stand guard outside the White House as people gather to protest on Sunday, May 31.
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A woman is carried by police in Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 31.
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Jeffrey Maddrey, an assistant chief of the New York Police Department, takes a knee during a rally in Brooklyn on May 31.
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A protester kneels in front of a police line in Memphis, Tennessee, on May 31.
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A person is seen inside a damaged 7-Eleven store in New York on May 31.
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Protester Kendrick Cutkelvin uses a SWAT vehicle loudspeaker to disperse a crowd of protesters after a rally in Savannah, Georgia, on May 31.
