2nd weekend of George Floyd protests closes in Southern California, this time peacefully

A second weekend of protests in response to the death of George Floyd concluded Sunday, June 7, with dozens of peaceful demonstrations around Southern California calling for an end to police brutality.

Free of the scuffling among officers and protestors and the looting that accompanied the first weekend of nonviolent demonstrations across the nation, powerful messages condemning systemic racism, rallying against racial inequities and calling for criminal justice reform prevailed in Los Angeles and Pasadena, Riverside, Huntington Beach and Pomona.

In Hollywood, the largest crowd of the day stopped traffic on the streets near the Capitol Records Building during a late-afternoon demonstration organized by Black Lives Matter.

One estimate put the crowd at 10,000 people. Others saw 20,000 to 30,000.

The series of peaceful protests that culminated Sunday marked the end of a week-long mission in the Los Angeles area for many National Guard troops brought in to support city officers and others in the region as civil unrest flared in the earliest demonstrations honoring Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in Minneapolis police custody on Memorial Day.

A video of the incident showed now-former police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes before he died. Chauvin and three other now-fired cops implicated in the case face criminal charges. Floyd, 46, had been accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.

He has since been mourned around the world.

“Here I am, at 60, fighting for the same thing my mama was when I was 8,” Melinda Martin, of Moreno Valley, said while marching in Riverside.

A diverse group of about 150 men and women waved signs with empowering messages and chanted “Black lives matter” in the shadow of the Huntington Beach Police Department Sunday. The group also recited the names of African Americans killed in police encounters around the country.

Organizer Randy Wright, a novice protest planner, said he was surprised by the turnout Sunday, but sure those who showed up to support the cause were part of the “silent majority,” a play on President Richard Nixon’s famous description of suburban whites who disapproved of protests in the 1960s.

“These people were scared to voice their opinions about police brutality,” Wright said. “People were angry this week, and we want to channel that anger into something good.”

U.S. Rep. Harley Rouda, who represents the southwestern coastal portions of Orange County, shared with the crowd his experience traveling to Montgomery, Alabama, with Congressman John Lewis and learning about lynchings and the civil rights movement.

“We gotta stop looking back and saying, ‘Look at the progress we’ve made,’” Rouda said, “and instead say to ourselves, ‘Look at how much farther we must go.’”

Ryan Moose, of Long Beach, and her 13-year-old daughter stood on a concrete ledge at the back of the group, Moose holding a sign that read, “Old Jim Crow, New Jim Crow. The whole system’s got to go!”

Moose, who said she has been to protests all over the Los Angeles area in recent days, said Sunday that watching demonstrations ultimately escalate into scuffles with police left her feeling hopeless. Seeing peaceful protests, however, like the one in Huntington Beach Sunday, “make you feel like change is possible,” she said, “and that change is coming.”

Elsewhere in town, protestors returned to the beach city’s pier for the second day in a row, also holding signs and relaying messages of hope and power amid tumultuous times for black people.

The voices of speakers at a march in Riverside, meanwhile, carried the same urgency as those echoing throughout Minneapolis, New York, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, where thousands upon thousands have demanded justice for Floyd while calling for sweeping changes to police tactics.

From Riverside’s Fairmount Park, where minimal police presence could be seen during the handful of scheduled speeches, the crowd marched to the Historic Courthouse on Main Street, where helmeted authorities, some carrying batons, were called upon to keep the peace.

With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic still a concern, almost all protesters wore masks, though most were within six feet of another group.

As flags flew half-staff overhead, Nanice Ahmed, 48, said despite the public health crisis, she, a Middle Eastern woman who says she has faced discrimination, needed to take a stand against racism.

“Today’s rally,” she said, “should be a representation of putting that love and support into action and to continue supporting black voices.”

Protestors conveyed the same sentiment in Compton Sunday during perhaps the most unique demonstration yet.

Escorted down Towne Center Drive by souped-up motorcycles, a caravan of about 200 cars and several equestrians brought together the local Hispanic and black communities for an afternoon drive to downtown Los Angeles and LAPD headquarters to challenge racial injustice and police brutality.

“My color is not a crime,” read a sign held up at the front of the march.

“Injustice Anywhere is a Threat EVERYwhere,” read another, reciting the words of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

Teens from a much younger generation than the one of adults who vividly recall King’s famous preachings organized an event at a shuttered Venice church not only to memorialize those who have died at the hands of police but also to draw attention to gentrification in Southern California.

With First Baptist Church of Venice behind them, members of Venice High School’s 2019 class called the 110-year-old building a representation of the rampant gentrification that has swept through Venice in recent decades.

More than 500 people listened to their message.

For several years, the historically black church has been the focal point of a battle in the seaside community. Two years after the church’s 2015 shuttering, the Westminster Avenue property was sold to a holding company involving media mogul Jay Penske.

A multi-unit development is planned for the lot.

“We picked this spot in a historic black neighborhood in Oakwood,” said Soni Lloyd, a history teacher at Venice High who helped his former students organize the remembrance ceremony. “This church has been a place of unity – but now it’s under threat.”

In addition to several presentations, prayers and songs by Native American residents, a nearly nine-minute moment of silence was observed, a now-universal gesture at protests symbolizing the amount of time Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck.

“History is repeating itself,” Lloyd said. “We are the ones who can change that history and it starts in this moment.”

Staff writers Ryan Carter and Josh Rosen contributed to this report.