It was scheduled for two o'clock so of course I arrived at one forty and sat in the car catching up on email. At about one fifty an enthusiastic young man pulled into the parking lot of the Playhouse Square complex and began to get a table and handout materials from his car and set them up in the adjacent open space at the town's main intersection. (I photographed demonstrations here, in 1991, from competing sides for and against that year's invasion of Iraq.) Suddenly, lots of people showed up right about two. This is a specifically local action. It's the thirteenth week they've held it, and all the locals know how long it takes to drive there. When enough people had come, organizers used a bullhorn to make some announcements and rhetorical points.
A particular point was to stress that this is an independent movement in the town of Southbury, not connected with any widespread organization, though they choose to use the "BLM" slogan as central to their effort.
Someone over in upstate New York is making these bracelets with the names of people (almost all black men) killed by police in questionable circumstances. I didn't get the details but it's a fund raising effort. The woman distributing/collecting ($10 a piece) asked me to take a picture of it, and wanted to put the basket on the ground to get her hands out of the picture. No, I said, it will be much better with your hands holding it out. Oh, of course, silly me, said she.
I'll just let the signs carry it out from here. Do click on any picture to see them much clearer and tighter if you're using a large display.
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