Exactly one week after the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police, another protest was held Monday afternoon in Marquette,
It was the third such protest in as many days, and for the third straight day, there was no violence. No businesses were looted. No people were injured. No property was damaged.
Roughly 200 people, many of them NMU students but not entirely, marched down Washington, Fifth, and Third Streets, as well as Baraga Avenue.
They sat in the middle of Washington Street in a Moment of Silence that lasted nine minutes. That was equal to the amount of time that video showed Floyd being pinned to the ground before he died last Monday night on a Minneapolis street.
This was by far the largest of the three protests held to date, but it continued to be peaceful. Many of the people in attendance Monday carried signs to show support for Floyd and his family, and to show their objection to racism, police brutality, and other injustice.
Some of the signs read “Black Live Matter”, and “I Can’t Breathe”.
They stood in front of the Marquette County Courthouse, in the middle of Washington Street, and chanted “no justice, no peace”, and “hands up, don’t shoot” in reference to the 2014 shooting death of another African American, Michael Brown, in a conformation with a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.
The protest blocked traffic on Washington Street near Third Street for a time, and one motorist got into a verbal argument with some of the protestors. The situation ended quickly, though, as protestors allowed the motorist to pass through.
There have been no confrontations between protestors and Marquette City Police officers, as the department has chosen to monitor the protests and only intervene if there was violence. There hasn’t been any, and police directed traffic away from the protest location.
Protestors, in turn, have also avoided targeting Marquette police, instead, staying focused on their message that social injustices be highlighted. They walked past the police department on Baraga Avenue, but there were no confrontations.
In Sault Ste. Marie Monday night, an estimated 200 people showed up for a protest in the downtown area Monday, at the corner of Ashmun and Portage Streets. Those protests were also peaceful, according to WWTV 9 and 10 News.
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