Chanting the name “Breonna Taylor” while bearing lit candles in honor of the Kentucky woman’s memory, nearly 50 people gathered around Bristol Borough’s waterfront Harriet Tubman statue for a vigil Saturday evening.
The event was intended to commemorate the lives of unarmed African-Americans shot by police officers and to demonstrate anger against the decision of a state grand jury last week not to charge those officers for Taylor’s death.
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“It’s what we’ve seen going back for years,” said Hiyab Hiruy, a member of Lower Bucks Change, which organized the event.
Hiruy, referring to the ruling not to charge officers for Taylor’s death, said: “Was it a surprise? No. Was I disappointed? Definitely.”
Attendees, some of whom came from as far away as Doylestown and New Hope, and nearly all of whom wore masks due to the coronavirus waved signs and repeated the slogan “Black Lives Matter” as speakers discussed what they described as failings by police, the media, and government, including President Donald Trump.
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“The officers weren’t held accountable because the justice system that killed Breonna Taylor is not set up to provide her justice,” said Korah Steed, a Bristol resident. “Being black living in America right now is tough. Defunding the police is part of the problem, but the problem is our community as a whole. I’m not even sure if racism is ever going to die in this country. It was hidden, but Donald Trump pulled off the cover.”
Tensions between the belief that change is possible and that it may not likely happen ran throughout the demonstration, with some speakers, including Morris Derry, founder of No More Pain, advocating working within the existing political system and alongside police officers to right perceived injustices, while other demonstrators took a different view.
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“People need to build power to resist and overcome,” said Ian Highcock, a Falls Township resident attending the vigil alongside his wife. “I’ve recent been reading ‘Caste’ by Isabel Wilkerson. I‘d say the change isn’t going to come in the current power structure.”
Highcock, who described himself as a radical leftist, said that he trusted neither the Democratic Party nor the Republicans to make significant changes to what he described as an oppressive system.
Kevin Leven, a New Hope resident and a member of the Bucks County Anti-Racism Coalition, said that the diversity of the demonstrators assembled was what was needed for change to go into effect. He spoke of the power of local organizing, describing how his organization’s protests against a racist sign outside Fred’s Breakfast Club, a New Hope eatery, attracted national attention.
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“White supremacy has been a problem for 400 years. If our lives matter, we need to pull up this white supremacist system by its roots, even if we white people have to give something up,” he said, reading from a statement written by Benjamin West, another member of the Bucks County Anti-Racism Coalition unable to attend the vigil. “Bias training and body cameras wouldn’t have kept her alive, the only thing that would have done that is ending the War on Drugs. We have to take our public wealth and hoarded private wealth out of our police departments and our luxury lifestyles and spend it on health care for all.”
Asked about how the jury’s decision related to conditions in Bucks County, Kevin Loughran, a former Bristol High School resident who currently lives in the borough, said that “bringing it to people’s eyes rather than seeing it on their screens or their cell phones clarifies that there is a need for justice.”
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Others attending the vigil discussed how cases similar to Breonna’s were likely taking place regularly in Bucks County, but went unnoticed due to the lack of video evidence.
Nick Ramsey, a Bristol Township resident, said he was neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the idea of change.
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“I just support what’s right. I’m absolutely disgusted about what’s going on. I’m tired of the poor leadership coming from the top down, and I believe black lives are as valuable as white lives, and I wish our national police system saw them that way, too.”
“Hope for the best but prepare for the worst” is the mantra of Spencer Potts, a Feasterville resident. Noting that he had few experiences with police on account of him being white, he said that he first heard of Taylor’s death on social media the day that it occurred and said racism had begun its revival in the U.S. long before Trump was elected.
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“You saw it with the Tea Party and with the takeover of various aspects of the political system. It won’t go away with Trump, either,” he said.
Bristol Borough and Levittown have been the site of Black Lives Matters events in recent months.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect a quote was attributed to the wrong person.
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