'We need voices.' Wayne County's Black Lives Matter push marks 1,000th rally, more to do

WOOSTER – More than 100 people hoisted signs, cheered on the supporting honks of passersby and heard from speakers to mark 1,000 consecutive days of Black Lives Matter demonstrations against police abuse.

The Wayne County Black Lives Matter movement, organized by the Wooster/Orrville NAACP and the Racial Justice Coalition after George Floyd's 2020 murder by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is among the longest running daily protests in the nation.

Despite its longevity, President of the Wooster/Orrville NAACP, Juanita Greene, said another 1,000 days is needed as the coalition enters police reform talks with the city of Orrville.

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She hopes officials will enact similar reforms as their counterparts in Wooster did last year. It's the coalition's first major step in advocating for change in the wider Wayne County area.

"We got to step up; we need voices," Greene told the crowd. "We are nonviolent, and we do this because we love our families; we love our cities."

Applying Wooster police reform in Orrville

The Wayne County Racial Justice Coalition hopes to achieve the level of police reform in Orrville as it did in Wooster after months of talks, Greene said.

These changes include restricting and defining when chokeholds, carotid holds and no-knock warrants can be used.

Policing reforms:Wooster Police announce policy reforms on anniversary of George Floyd's death

While the holds and warrants were rarely, if ever used in Wooster, the changes to police policy reflect the reality on the ground and federal policy, co-founder of the coalition Desiree Weber told The Daily Record in May 2022.

Wooster police can now only use carotid holds and chokeholds in situations that require deadly force, placing these holds in the same category as firearms, The Daily Record reported last year.

Announce and knock warrants and daytime warrants are the default policy for Wooster law enforcement. A higher standard of fact and circumstance is required to seek no-knock warrants.

The updated policy says the chief of police or command staff in his absence must approve any warrants that are not the default warrants.

One thousand days with more to do

Oliver Warren congratulated the crowd on its 1,000 days of persistence and said there is more work to be done in Wooster.

As a teacher of history at Wooster High School, Warren said, the city and county need a diverse range of perspectives.

"I am the only Black teacher in my building," Warren said. "We need to integrate more diverse people and curriculum in our schools."

This diversity will allow students and adults to better understand the nation's complicated history by exposing them to different, nonwhite points of view, he said.

"It's time to change things for our children because we can't change the adults," Warren said. "We have to help our children."

For other speakers — such as the Rev. Walter Clark of Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and Laura Burch, a College of Wooster professor — the daily demonstrations have seen local success, but there is still a national problem.

Burch said the movement is about opposing violent and harmful policing, and it is also about advocating for a better quality of life.

This includes better access to affordable health care, healthy food, good-paying jobs and a decent education.

For Clark, repeated headlines about police violence is what keeps him on the square.

Clark said the number of people of color who die at the hands of police since the movement's inception is in the hundreds.

"We are here to affect change," he said. "All lives won't matter until Black lives are treated the same as a straight, white male."

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Daily BLM demonstrations reach 1,000 days