The "'Black Lives Matter' Is Gaining Momentum: Part III" Story

It was an ordinary day.  The city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania has always been a place where citizens have gathered in public spaces for political protests.  I can personally remember quite a few of the protests that have been held, mostly in the center of the city of Lancaster.  I have been there myself and have taken photographs to share on this site a few times.  One group that usually appears for anti-war demonstrations is the Mennoite community.  Same goes for the Franklin and Marshall College students who also appear for protests.  Over the past few weeks we have had numerous protests, of which I have written. They have been predicated by the death of a black man named George Floyd .  Many protests from the past have been attended by small gatherings, but there have been a few that drew hundreds, if not thousands to Penn Square or the nearby county courthouse.  The three most memorable, up until a few weeks ago, when there was a large protest at the Lancaster Police Station, were the April 7, 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. gathering, the October 15, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium Day and the May 3, 1992 Rodney King demonstration.  

In 1968 the Rev. Ernest E. Christian spoke to a crowd of about 700 people on the courthouse steps in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.  Three days earlier Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenessee.  Riots broke out in more than a dozen cities due to the murder of the beloved civil rights leader.  In Lancaster, the city's Southeast, black neighborhood experienced some minor vandalism before it was curtailed by the local police department.  A sniper fired a shot at a police officer, but was quickly apprehended.  Three days later a gathering of 700 gathered to pay tribute to Mr. King and to mourn his death and call for change.  A group of about 60 gatherer at the Crispus Attucks Center in the Southeast section of Lancaster and marched to the courthouse, being joined by a large number along the way.  Rev. Christian spoke last at the event and said, "You have shot Martin Luther King, but there will be another Martin Luther King, and you may shoot him, but there will be 13 million more Martin Luther Kings coming."  The crowd of 700, mostly black, burst into applause.

 On October 15, 1969 a crowd of about 450 people gathered for a torchlit vigil on the Franklin & Marshall College campus for Moratorium Day, a nationwide protest against U.S. involvement in Vietnam.  In the days prior to social media and 24-hour-a-day cable news, it was thought to be impossible to organize a nationwide protest on the spur the moment.  But anti-Vietnam War "Moratorium Day" proved that wrong.  The anti-war protest was organized by Franklin & Marshall College's Students for a Democratic Society which was accosted by a group of counter-protestors  who threw eggs, started fist fights and tried to run down protestors with cars.  Hours later a much larger crowd gathered to decry the violent response and call for free speech.  Then on May 3, 1992 several hundred people gathered in Penn Square to protest the verdict in the Rodney King beating trial.  

In the King case, Mr. King was beaten by several police officers during an arrest in Los Angeles on March 3, 1991.  But, a bystander with a camera recorded the entire event which resulted in public outrage and the officers being charged with assault and use of excessive force.  When they were acquitted after a trial over a year later, Los Angeles erupted into six days of rioting that spread to other cities. The Rev. Harvey Speakman III, local NAACP and pastor of Bethel AME Church expressed outrage and urged the crowd to take the spirit of the protest back into their church and communities.  He handled the situation well and told everyone that prejudice starts at home.  The recent protests over the deaths of two black men have been large and many, but church leaders have helped to quell the anger and given ideas as to how to proceed in the future.  The "Black Lives Movement" will hopefully lead to a better understanding of the problems faced by the black community and lead to a better society for them.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.