Protest Works

How the Black Lives Matter demonstrations will shake up the 2020 election—and reshape American politics for a generation to come

- By Daniel Q. Gillion

I drove 1,200 miles, from Philadelphia to Minneapolis, to be a part of the George Floyd protest movement. Throughout the city, from the predominantly white neighborhood of Bancroft to the more diverse streets of Bryant, I saw signs in livingroom windows that read black lives matter and we stand for equality. As I drove up Cedar Avenue, heading to 38th Street, I also saw signs in the windows of stores and restaurants that read minority-owned—an indication that these businesses stood with the Floyd movement, but also that they hoped to be spared should the protests turn violent.

Pressed together with protesters adorned in masks, I stood on the unofficially renamed George Floyd Avenue, across the street from Cup Foods, where Floyd had been killed after allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill. As I scanned the crowd, I saw what I had seen in the other cities I’d visited as I made my way west: a shockingly diverse group of protesters. As a Black man, I found myself standing next to many people who did not look like me—sometimes, their cries even drowned out my own. The coalition has changed. It has grown.

Of course, not all Americans have embraced Black Lives Matter. Some look at the men and women demanding reform and see only looters and thugs. ¥ey are nurtured in this view by the president of the United States, who greeted the outcry following Floyd’s murder with threats of violence against the protesters and tweets about “LAW AND ORDER” and the “SILENT MAJORITY.”