Caravan for change. Car protest, march in Lexington mark Breonna Taylor’s 27th birthday.
Protesters gave their feet a rest Friday afternoon as they participated in a car protest in downtown Lexington on what would have been Breonna Taylor’s 27th birthday.
Since last week, people have marched in the streets of downtown Lexington in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement fighting against police brutality.
However, some who wanted to participate were discouraged by the potential safety hazards of mass gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Community organizations Cooperation Lexington, Stop The Violence Lex and Lexington Housing Justice Collective, who have helped plan the protests of the past week, listened to these concerns.
Juan Gill, co-founder of Stop The Violence Lex, said that they wanted to organize this special protest in Taylor’s honor as a way everyone could feel safe joining.
Some participants expressed that although they were concerned about COVID-19, they felt they needed to speak up .
“I’m a little more concerned with me potentially being the next hashtag,” said Kamri Harris, 25.
During the protest, nearly two dozen volunteers were positioned at Triangle Park, where they held up signs and used megaphones to start chants. At one point, they sang “Happy Birthday” to Taylor. They were greeted by a symphony of honking from the participating drivers.
On March 13, Taylor was killed by police officers while asleep in her Louisville apartment. Police were executing a no-knock search warrant and shot Taylor eight times.
Her death, and the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, has sparked a movement calling for greater police accountability and oversight throughout the nation.
“I hope they find justice for Breonna Taylor,” Gill said. “We gotta make some changes on everything the police do. They gotta sit down and rewrite, change the whole contract up, the whole police contract.”
Those participating in the car protest drove around downtown Lexington starting at 5:30. The group started at Rupp Arena, drove down South Broadway, turned at Short Street and finished down East Main Street at the back end of Rupp Arena.
The protesters drove along the route eight times, once for every time Breonna was shot, said Gill.
Many of the cars in the caravan were decorated with signs or paint that said things like “She deserved a birthday, not a funeral” and “Say her name.”
Participants said they were participating in the car protest to call for justice for Taylor and all people of color killed by police.
“Injustice has been around since the beginning of this country,” said retired social worker Rhonda Thomas. “Black Americans have never been treated equally, and I think that if any time, we are ever going to have an opportunity to change things, I believe now is the time.”
Harris said that while George Floyd has been getting a lot of national attention, she doesn’t feel that Taylor has.
“Yeah, it’s a lot of black males being killed by the police, but black women are also being killed by the police and they need their voices heard too,” she said.
Organizers said that the regular nightly protests in downtown Lexington will continue in addition to Friday afternoon’s car protest.
As the car protest came to an end, marchers again gathered at the Courthouse Plaza for an eighth night.
They sang “Happy Birthday” to Taylor and marched through downtown streets, pausing in front of police headquarters and at the Lexington Transit Center, where a portrait of Taylor has been hung.
Chief Lawrence Weathers was among the police officers outside headquarters as demonstrators stood in silence for eight minutes, one for each time Taylor was shot. Afterward, Weathers listened as they took turns telling of encounters with police.
Wayne Thurman, a former in-school suspension teacher in Jefferson County, said he thought for a long time before deciding to take the megaphone and tell of an incident in which he physically blocked a Louisville Metro Police officer who he said was preparing to deploy a Taser on a “verbally loud” student at the high school where he worked.
Thurman said he was reprimanded and ultimately sent to work at a different school after physically protecting the student, who he knew had recently been kicked out of his home and “didn’t probably have the tools, the coping mechanism” to deal with what was happening.
“It’s not always safe for us to explain how we really feel,” Thurman said after he told his story. “We just can’t be afraid to speak our truth anymore.”
The marchers continued up Main Street to the Fifth Third Bank Pavilion, where they chanted “peace to our ancestors who were sold here,” and “take back Cheapside.”
“I’m emotionally, mentally, physically tired and drained, but I’m not going to stop because how I feel right now is what’s going to make change happen,” Harris said at the car protest. “I’m gonna do whatever it takes to see some change.”
Herald-Leader staff writer Karla Ward contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 7:39 PM.