'We're not going to stop': Jacob Blake family lead Kenosha march as Trump plans visit
Family members of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot and gravely wounded by a white police officer in Kenosha, led a large rally in the small Wisconsin city on Saturday afternoon, as Donald Trump planned to visit the city next week.
With chants of “seven bullets, seven days” ringing out to mark the number of shots the 29-year-old father reportedly took to his back last Sunday, a crowd of around 1,000 gathered in the hot sun. They heard Wisconsin Democratic congresswoman Gwen Moore address the rally, saying “I am mad as hell” about the injuries that left Blake fighting for his life in the local hospital.
Later on Saturday, a White House official said that Trump, who has taken a hardline stance against the protests, will visit Kenosha on Tuesday to meet law enforcement officials and assess damages.
“The thing I’d like to tell Mr President is that Black Lives Matter members are not the thugs, not the looters,” said Clyde McLemore, founder of a BLM chapter just outside of Kenosha.
“He’s blaming us, and that’s not the way it is.”
During the rally, relatives including Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr, and sister, Letetra Widman, spoke, having not long returned from speaking at Friday’s huge “get your knee off our necks” civil rights march in Washington DC, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s I have a dream address in 1963.
The Washington rally and march was organized to protest the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer who knelt on his neck in Minneapolis in May during an attempted arrest. Some protesters had marched from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 40 miles (64km) north of Kenosha, to the capital.
Related: A tale of two videos: Jacob Blake, Kyle Rittenhouse and two types of policing
But it served as a protest for the wounding of Blake and a demand for the end of years of racist attacks and police killings of African Americans.
The rally in Kenosha on Saturday was peaceful but impassioned, following several days of calm demonstrations in the city since Tuesday night’s violent clash, in which armed white agitators appeared in town and shot at Black Lives Matter protesters, leading to two deaths.
Jacob Blake Sr decried the local police to the crowd in Kenosha: “What gave them the right to think that my son was an animal?” he said.
He pledged the protests would go on.
“We’re not going to stop. We’re still suffering because there are two justice systems. There’s one for that white boy that walked down the street and killed two people and blew another man’s arm off. Then there’s one for my son,” he said.
He was referring to Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who appeared on the streets with an assault rifle on Tuesday night and walked through police lines after shooting protesters, with no consequences until he turned himself in in Illinois 12 hours later. He is now charged with numerous felonies, including intentional homicide.
Blake Sr also addressed white allies, many of whom have been marching in Kenosha and elsewhere in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“My caucasian counterparts we love you, but you will never understand what we go through,” he said.
Letetra Widman led many of the chants ringing out, including “seven bullets, seven days” and “I’m proud of being Black. I love Black people”.
She had attracted attention the day after her brother was shot, with a fierce denunciation of historical violence against African Americans. She said she had not cried, instead she was angry, adding: “I don’t want your pity, I want change.”
Related: 'I don't want pity. I want change': Jacob Blake's family pleads for justice
On Saturday, she recited lines of poetry to the burgeoning crowd: “I am the keeper and I won’t accept your abuse. I am the keeper and I will not die – for 400 years you have tried”, referring to the four centuries since the first abducted Africans were forcibly brought to the US and sold into slavery.
Jacob Blake’s uncle Justin Blake urged those gathered to campaign nonstop. “Don’t just wait until a body hits the ground to put your boots on. Put your boots on every day and do that work,” he said.
The rally was organized by the family and a local campaign group Black Lives Activists of Kenosha (BLAK).
Moore said one prize for protesters would be the passing of the George Floyd justice in policing sweeping reform act, legislation that she helped introduce to Congress, but which is a long way from becoming law, with Republicans in control of the Senate and the White House.
The Wisconsin lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, told the boisterous crowd: “I want us to get together like this in the happy times, too.”
But he added: “Black people made it through some of the toughest times in human history and we’re still here today. Justice is the bare minimum, so we are not going away until we see justice.”
The disturbances of the past week, particularly the arrival of armed outsiders such as Rittenhouse, have rattled Kenosha. People have painted messages of unity and hope on boarded up storefronts.
“It’s gotten to the point where I won’t go out after a certain time, after dark. Who’s to say that within the crowds there’s a guy who wants to kill Black people,” said resident Macari Gosa, 27, who works at a discount convenience store.
More than 1,000 national guard troops have been deployed to Kenosha from several states but have been standing by on the outskirts of marches in the last few days.
But there has been intense anger at arrests of dozens of non-violent protesters by federal agents who would not identify themselves.
Rittenhouse is being held without bond in Illinois, awaiting transfer to Wisconsin, and intends to argue self-defense, according to his lawyer, Lin Wood.
Reuters contributed reporting
