Nineteen-Year-Olds from Oakland, California Organize Peaceful Protest
Akil Riley, 19, one of the organizers of a peaceful protest against racism and police brutality in Oakland, California (Photo credit: Darwin BondGraham)
Amidst all the uncertainty and confusion during these topsy-turvy times, it is exceedingly encouraging and reassuring when young people step up to shine a light on a dark space. That is precisely what nineteen-year-old college students Akil Riley and Xavier Brown did when they organized a peaceful protest against racism and police brutality in Oakland, California on 1 June 2020.
The protest followed the brutal murder of forty-six-year-old father George Floyd on Memorial Day in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who has since been arrested and charged with second-degree murder. (The three other police officers who were complicit in George Floyd’s murder due to their creating the conditions which allowed it to happen — J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao — have also been arrested and charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.)
More than fifteen thousand community members traversing the spectrums of age, ability, orientation, religion, education, language, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, national origin, and melanin level joined together to march two miles peacefully from Oakland Technical High School past the Oakland Police Department headquarters and on to Frank Ogawa Plaza. There was not one fight, not one piece of property defaced or destroyed, during the protest. The only violence to occur was initiated by Oakland Police Department members themselves at approximately 7.41pm, nineteen minutes before the new curfew — which had only been announced three hours and forty-one minutes earlier, as the peaceful protest began and community members may not have been checking their phones for alerts — was instated.
We here at Trees Are My People recognize that the only way we can ever have peace on Earth for all species to enjoy is for justice to prevail for all people. We are inspired and moved by young people like Akil Riley and Xavier Brown, who see injustice and immediately take action to unify individuals of like minds into a peaceful-yet-powerful force. As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Thank you, Akil Riley and Xavier Brown! We see you!
Read more about the peaceful protest Akil Riley and Xavier Brown coordinated in this article published on Berkeleyside.