Last Updated on May 29, 2020, 12:07 PM | Published: May 29, 2020
Black Lives Matter OKC will hold a rally and protest starting at N.E. 36th and N. Kelley Avenue in Oklahoma City Sunday from 2:30 to 4:30.
The group is organizing the rally through their Facebook page.
The purpose stated in their event description says they are “demanding justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Travis Miller, Olian Jefferson, Anthony Meely, Isaiah Lewis, Derrick Ollie, Davey Jefferies, and others slain or victimized by White Supremacy, Police Brutality and the systems of oppression and racism.”
The event will also commemorate “the atrocity of the Greenwood Massacre that occurred 5/31/1921 and declare BLACK LIVES MATTER.”
Anticipating Sunday’s rally, Sheri Dickerson with Black Lives Matter OKC told Free Press the group is focused on black and brown people in Oklahoma “who have been victimized even unto death by the systems of white supremacy and racism.”
“We stand in solidarity with those across the nation raising voices and standing against the atrocities that occur against black lives,” said Dickerson.
Response to killing
The rally is in response to the most recent high-profile death of George Floyd in Minneapolis recorded on a video that went viral on social media.
Floyd was already in handcuffs after having been arrested by four Minneapolis police officers. He was then placed face-down on the ground, considered by many police agencies to be a dangerous practice.
One of the officers then placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for a period of time until he died. The three other officers who were present did nothing to intervene.
The four officers were fired after a police command investigation the next day.
Protests in Minneapolis have become more intense each night because the killing of Floyd is just the latest in an ongoing system of violence against the city’s black population protesters say.
Second in 30 days
This will be the second rally led by Black Lives Matter OKC – Oklahoma City in 30 days brought on by recent killings of black people at the hands of the police.
The May 10 “Stop Killing Us!” rally was on Mother’s Day and focused on the dangers black men experience from the police and from some in white culture.
It was in response to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man who was jogging down a street in a predominantly white neighborhood in Glynn County, Georgia.
This was our coverage of that rally:
Stop Killing Us! rally points to perils of black youth on Mother’s Day
“I am damn sick of having to ask and say that I matter!” Sheri Dickerson, one of the organizers of that rally, told occupants of about 50 cars.
At that May 10 rally she told us the rally was to resist those who “make statements to justify lynching black bodies, killing us, and taking us from those who love us stealing our purpose and our destinies.”
“We are tired,” Dickerson said.
Founder, publisher, and editor of Oklahoma City Free Press. Brett continues to contribute reports and photography to this site as he runs the business.
