Marching for justice
Following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25, protests calling for an end to police violence against people of color began in every major city in the United States and quickly spread to thousands of communities nationwide and internationally. Thanks, in part, to the efforts of Trajan Garcia, a former CSC student, even Chadron hosted its own protest against racial injustice.
Chadron can be insulated from the rest of the nation by its small size and somewhat-remote location. Though the college brings added diversity to the area, like in many small towns, residents can sometimes remain more quiet on issues some see as only effecting large cities.
It was that silence that motivated Garcia and his fiancée Brittneyy Peters to start speaking out against the injustice they saw.
“If people aren’t going to listen because they don’t care, then I guess we have to bring it to their town,” Garcia said. “When the march is going down their Main Street they’re forced to listen. I know there were people that were upset by the fact the march was held. That’s all the more reason for it to have happened.”
Originally Garcia, Peters and friends, including CSC junior Will Atnip, of Lander, Wyoming, discussed getting a small group together to protest. “The idea, honestly, was to try and get maybe 20 or 30 people,” Garcia said. “We never expected so many people to show up.”
Soon, news of the protest spread but it wasn’t until about 10 minutes before the march that other protesters began to arrive in large numbers in front of the CSC Student Center. Soon the crowd of about 30 or 40 swelled to around 200 mask-clad, sign carrying, protestors.
“It was a really great feeling seeing all of those people and knowing they too were upset and care about things that don’t necessarily affect them directly,” Garcia said.
Gathered around CSC’s Lindeken Clocktower, Garcia used his megaphone to ask those gathered to join him in a chant of “we want peace for the children.”
Originally the march was to take place on the sidewalks of Main Street in Chadron and travel from the college to the north lawn of the Dawes County Courthouse, but prior to the march, Garcia was approached by Jon Hansen, vice president of enrollment management, marketing & student services, and Chadron Police Chief Tim Lordino who offered the services of Chadron Police and CSC security. CPD blocked traffic and escorted the protest down Main Street itself, while CSC security remained near the student center to be sure cars left there weren’t vandalized.
Along the protest route bystanders looked on from their windows and porches. At least two community members set up along the route and distributed bottled water to marchers. When it reached the county building protestors gathered in the lawn to hear from speakers, many were from Chadron’s Black community.
One speaker, CSC senior BriYanna Lyon, of Fountain, Colorado, said it meant everything for her, as a Black woman, to be heard and seen during the protest.
“(Being seen) means even though you may not understand my experience, you’re on my side, you’re here if I need to talk,” Lyon said. “You see me. You get it. You’re not going to understand exactly what I’ve been through, but you know it’s happened to me – you believe me.”
The testimonials, according to Lyon, allowed students to share their experiences. “That was effective,” she said. “It helps people who haven’t been around social injustice, or don’t see it in their community, to open their eyes to the fact that it can happen anywhere.
“As Black Americans, we don’t want people to feel sorry for us,” Lyon said. “We want the acknowledgment that this violence is happening and things need to change.”
Though the protest was not affiliated with the college and it took place during summer break, it was well represented by CSC students, faculty and staff who took part. Among those who spoke that day were Ted Tewahade, CSC Title IX coordinator, CSC junior Tyreek Bryant, of Denver, and Justin Cauley, sophomore of Los Angeles. Professor David Nesheim spoke regarding social injustice and took time to recite the names of the many people of color killed by police.
Like many other demonstrations, the Chadron protesters joined in lying face down with their hands behind their backs for nearly nine minutes in observance of the time George Floyd spent lying prostrate with an officer’s knee across the back of his neck before he eventually died.
Garcia and others held another demonstration a week later, but none have been held since June. Nationwide, protests against police violence continue to rage on, reinvigorated after Kenosha, Wisconsin, police shot Jacob Blake, a Black father of three, in the back seven times, last weekend.
Garcia, who was a junior at CSC when the protest took place, decided over the summer not to return to the college amid the pandemic and has been unsure about leading more events in the future.
“I want to look for the fights we can fight closer to home because that’s where we’re going to get reach change,” Garcia said, but it’s been a hard summer for many and he is still trying to figure out how to move forward. “I’m very new to all of this – the idea of doing anything – so it’s difficult and stressful to figure it all out.”
Both he and Lyon hope knowledge of the protest will help spark others to take a stand and speak up in support of Chadron’s Black community.
“If we as a college community make the environment inviting, I feel like more people will speak out,” Lyon said.
For her part, Lyon wants people to know that injustice exists. “The protest that happened here, it was for us to be heard – for us to be seen,” Lyon said. “It was the acknowledgment that just because we’re a small town it doesn’t mean injustice doesn’t happen here.
“People need to see and know that (the protest) happened,” she said. “Now what do we do now that we had a protest? How do we move forward? What’s the next step for our Black community?”