On Friday, Oct. 1, a group of activists met in Founders Park to march to town hall. The call for a peaceful protest came out on Wednesday, Sept. 29, on the Johnson City Black Lives Matter Instagram page (@johnsoncityblm).
In the Instagram post, the description explains the purpose of the march to support a local man, Johnathon Bowers, injured at Black Lives Matter protests in summer of 2020. The man responsible for these injuries, Jared Benjamin Lafer, recently had the charges for the assault dropped by a grand jury that refused to indict Lafer.
I went to the protests on Friday. We gathered at the entrance of Founders Park and sat in the amphitheater area while we waited for people to show up. Behind us, the Johnson City Fall Festival was happening.
We began to march when approximately 30 people had joined us in the amphitheater. Sierra Gilmer led the march with everyone else following. She began to chant, “Black Lives” and the group responded “Matter.” There were several other chants.
The path began in the middle of the Fall Festival and the attendees looked on as the group temporarily disrupted the scene. While walking through downtown Johnson City, there were several honks of support from drivers as well as sneering by other pedestrians on the sidewalk.
Once we reached city hall, the crowd went over to the sign in front and sat in between the landscaped flowers.
They then began to just speak to each other. Some people spoke about their experiences in East Tennessee schools, how the school systems shape the academic, as well as the extra curricular, around cis, straight, white men.
When Gilmer spoke about the turnout of people, she said this is a “better step in the right direction,” because the group that showed up for the protest were dedicated, and this could be used to help build a bigger group. She made it apparent that, “we need to start right here in our community” when talking about the Black Lives Matter movement.
