‘It’s time for solutions.’ Activist group to hold online public forum on race.

Amid widespread protests following the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, the BlueGrass Activist Alliance and Our Commonwealth will host an online forum with local leaders and activists on Thursday.

The forum, which is titled “Race: Addressing the Elephant in the Room,” will be hosted by Denise Gray, former candidate for the Kentucky State Senate. The forum will feature input from 12 panelists.

• Representative George Brown - Kentucky State Representative, District 77
  
  
• Councilmember James Brown - LFUCG Councilmember, District 1
  
  
• Devine Carama - Hip Hop Artist, Community Activist and Speaker
  
  
• Arnold Farr - University of Kentucky, Professor of Philosophy
  
  
• Representative Kelly Flood - Kentucky State Representative, District 75
  
  
• Colmon Elridge - Former Chief of Staff for former Gov. Steve Beshear
  
  
• Omar Salinas-Chacón - Community Activist
  
  
• Sarah Williams - Community Activist
  
  
• Lamar Wilson - Community Activist
  
  

“It’s time for solutions,” Gray said. “This is not a Democrat or Republican problem. This is not a white or black problem. We have been putting a band-aid on a festering sore that now needs surgery. We need everyone to work together for solutions so that all Kentuckians feel safe and heard.”

Gray said a majority of the members of the BlueGrass Activist Alliance are not people of color, so the forum is an opportunity for the organization’s members to ask questions and learn.

“A lot of them want to know what can they do, from where they are to make a real difference in our community,” Gray said. “We’re gonna have a real discussion that may be painful at times, but in the end we’re talking real solutions — what we can do because we can’t continue to carry on like this.”

According to a press release, both the state Democratic and Republican parties were invited to participate in the forum, but the Republican Party of Kentucky has not accepted the invitation yet. Gray said she is disappointed because of that.

“They have the majority of the power here, and without them there’s a major hole,” Gray said.

Gray said she extended an invite to RPK on Monday. Mike Lonergan, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Kentucky, said it had not received an invite for the forum as of Wednesday afternoon.

The forum will be broadcast via Facebook Live on Thursday, June 4, at 7 p.m.