Black Lives Matter Organizers In Rural Cortland County Are Tired Of Gestures

CORTLAND, N.Y. — Few people downtown would look Steve Williams in the eye. Not the police officers stationed at each end of Courthouse Park. Not the two white families at his front and back, who called past him to greet each other. 

Williams had come there not in support of the protest but as a critic, centered around one central question: How long would it take a stranger holding a Black Lives Matter sign to acknowledge Williams, a Black man? “It’s lacking that passion. Y’all know that passion when you really mean something?

Syracuse: 4 people stand on street encircled by crowd

Youth-led Protest Urges Syracuse Police to Remove Officers From Schools

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Pressure is mounting on city lawmakers to change how the Syracuse Police Department operates: The state passed two sets of state-mandated police reforms this week that Syracuse will implement. A still-unresolved contract between the city and the Syracuse Police Benevolent Association will likely head to arbitration. Protest organizers have vowed to march across the city for 40 days, part of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd. 

On Friday afternoon, day 14 of the protests, another group mounted its pressure. Organizing under the name Cuse Youth Black Lives Matter (CuseYouthBLM), a set of 10 organizers from a local high school had pushed three specific demands from city hall. One would give the Citizens Review Board power by reforming its structure; another would increase transparency in SPD’s new officer hiring process.

brother: activists, some wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts, gather for march to protest alleged police brutality

My Brother’s Killing Messed Me Up

March 7, 2012 my oldest brother was killed. He was killed by the NOPD (New Orleans Police Department). Coming home from school March 7, 2012, my oldest brother and his friend was sitting outside. They were just chilling and talking. Once he saw my siblings and I get off the school bus, he told us not to come outside until we finished our homework.

police shootings: Man in denim jacket over dark suit sniffs flower next to casket covered with flowers.

New York Activist Against Police Shootings Laid to Rest

On Sept. 27, 1994, Nicholas Heyward Sr.’s life changed. His 13-year-old son, Nicholas Naquan Heyward Jr., was playing cops-and-robbers with a toy gun in the Gowanus Houses in Brooklyn when he was shot and killed by Brian George, a New York Police Department housing authority officer.

Former Attorney General Holder Urges Action on Racial Issues Under Trump

Panelists at a discussion on race spoke mostly about collective response to a president they fear will roll back the rights of people of color, as well as other groups.
“Start where you are,” said DeRay McKesson, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. “I didn’t get a call from Harriet Tubman to be an activist.”