ABILENE, TX— Some members of the Abilene community are coming together for a peaceful protest at Rose Park Tuesday, Sept. 1.
“Let’s talk about it. Let’s put it out there. Why does this keep happening?” says Shawn Sheppard, the organizer of the protest.
It’s happening in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old unarmed Black man shot by Wisconsin police. Blake is now in the hospital, paralyzed from the injuries.
“There were four cops in that video, three or four from what I saw, and you’re telling me you couldn’t contain one man? The video I saw, he didn’t look like he was trying to fight the cop or anything. It doesn’t give you the right to shoot him in the back, especially in front of his kids,” says Sheppard.
This peaceful protest comes nearly 3 months after several demonstrations in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.
“If we can’t sit down and talk about why racism exists in the first place, then we’re going to keep marching for decades, centuries to come. We aren’t the first and we definitely won’t be the last. Our kids will be doing the same thing,” says Andre Gwinn, a member of the Abilene Black Chamber of Commerce.
Gwinn says this is just another reminder of the constant battle for equality.
“I want to get rid of the stigma that when they see protests or marches pop out it’s not just a bunch of African Americans that are showing up for this. We got our Caucasian brothers, our Hispanic brothers, there’s LGBTQ members out there. It’s a collaborative coalition of effort,” says Gwinn.
“Hopefully if we keep doing these protests and keep talking, everybody else in the world sees these videos and they help us as a unit and hopefully get change at some point,” says Sheppard.
The protest is planned for Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Rose Park.
