‘They’re waiting for us to give up!’ Rally at SC State House protests police violence

For hours Tuesday afternoon, under a hot sun, about 100 protesters stood, sat, clenched fists and chanted on the S.C. State House sidewalk bordering Gervais Street.

“Anybody not mad after seeing what happened to George Floyd has a problem!” shouted Danielle Ford, one of the main speakers, who then led chants:

“No justice! No peace!” she shouted. The crowd, fists clenched, chanted her words back.

“Let us up! Let us breathe! Let us live!” she shouted. The crowd roared back, “Let us up! Let us breathe! Let us live!”

“Hands up!” she yelled. “Don’t shoot! returned the crowd.. “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” Again and again and again.

When she wasn’t chanting, Ford told the crowd what they could do to fight racism in the wake of last week’s death of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man who died in police custody in Minnosota.

“If you see somebody that is racist, call ‘em out!” she told the crowd. “Call your friends out! Call your relatives out!”

She told them never give up. “They’re waiting for us to give up! They’re waiting for us to give in!”

Floyd’s death — which followed an officer kneeling on his neck while he was restrained lying face down on the ground — was captured on a nine-minute video and ruled a homicide in an autopsy. It also was only the latest in a pattern of killings and woundings of unarmed African Africans by white police officers around the nation and in South Carolina. Many, such as the 2015 killing of Walter Scott, who was running from a North Charleston police officer when he was shot in the back, were caught on video and went viral.

Ford, 47, of Blythewood, is African American, but more than a few of the speakers at Tuesday’s rally — one of whom sang a pitch-perfect a cappella verse of Amazing Grace — were white. And the crowd, nearly all young people in their late teens or 20s, was about half white, half black.

“I quit my job to be here,” said one young man who was distributing water to the crowd. He was white.

Numerous cars and trucks honked as they passed, in apparent support, and many drivers and passengers waved.

Police were on hand, but they stayed mostly out of sight and far back. At such events, there are usually an undercover officer or two in the crowd. Riot equipped officers are usually nearby, ready to deploy in event of trouble.

Tuesday’s rally was the fourth at the State House since Saturday, when a demonstration turned violent as some lawless elements among the protesters burned police cars near downtown police headquarters and vandalized downtown stores.

A Sunday demonstration in Columbia threatened to turn violent when several hundred demonstrators advanced on the rear of the police station. But police had prepared a rear guard action — demonstrators were met with a solid, unyielding wall of police in heavy riot gear. As police started to slowly advance, throwing tear gas into the crowd, demonstrators retreated back to the State House.

At Tuesday’s rally, which remained peaceful up until publication deadline, other speakers urged the crowd to vote and work for positive changes in a police culture that has, they said, too long silenced good officers who find it difficult to speak out against racism in their ranks.

Rally goers Tuesday clutched numerous signs, including one that read, “Evil wants us to do nothing.”

This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 6:34 PM.