Floyd killing finds echoes of abuse in South Africa, Kenya

By GERALD IMRAY and TOM ODULA

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FILE - In this June 9, 2020, file photo, Kenyan children and men are photographed in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, in front of a new mural showing an incident in 2016 when a Kenyan riot policeman repeatedly kicked a protester. The killing of George Floyd in the United States has raised awareness over police violence in South Africa and Kenya. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)


CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Collins Khosa was killed by law enforcement officers in a poor township in Johannesburg over a cup of beer left in his yard. The 40-year-old black man was choked, slammed against a wall, beaten, kicked and hit with the butt of a rifle by the soldiers as police watched, his family says.

Two months later, South Africans staged a march against police brutality. But it was mostly about the killing of George Floyd in the United States, with the case of Khosa, who died on April 10, raised only briefly.

“We also lost our loved one. South Africa, where are you?” Khosa’s partner, Nomsa Montsha, asked in a wrenching TV interview Friday, eight weeks after she held his hand as he died while waiting for an ambulance.

Her words, in a soft, steady voice, were a searing rebuke of the perceived apathy in South Africa over Khosa’s death. The army exonerated the soldiers in a report that concluded he died from a blunt force head injury that was no one’s fault. His family is still seeking a criminal case.

In this photo taken Wednesday, June 3, 2020 demonstrators protest outside parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, about the killing of George Floyd in the United Sates and Collins Khosa, portrait on poster, in Alexandra Township near Johannesburg. Khosa’s family said he was beaten to death by law enforcement officers over a cup of beer left in his yard during the coronavirus lockdown. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)
Floyd’s death also emboldened a small number of people in Kenya to march and tell their own stories of injustice and brutality by police.

Despite racial reconciliation that emerged after the end of the apartheid system, poor and black South Africans still fall victim to security forces that now are mostly black. The country is plagued by violent crime, and police often are accused of resorting to heavy-handed tactics.

Journalist Daneel Knoetze, who looked into police brutality in South Africa between 2012 and 2019, found that there were more than 42,000 criminal complaints against police, which included more than 2,800 killings — more than one a day. There were more than 27,000 cases of alleged assault by police, many classified as torture, and victims were “overwhelmingly” poor and black, he said.

“It is clear that in South Africa, 26 years of democracy have not as yet ensured that black lives matter as much as white lives,” said a statement last week from the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which promotes the vision of the anti-apartheid leader and the country’s first black president.
Angelo Fick, who researches issues of human rights and equality, said white people are policed differently from blacks in South Africa in what he calls “the echoes of apartheid.”


In this June 3, 2020, photo, demonstrators take part in a protest outside parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, against the killing of George Floyd in the United Sates and Collins Khosa, portrait on poster, in the Alexandra Township, near Johannesburg. Khosa’s family said he was killed by law enforcement officers over a cup of beer left in his yard during the coronavirus lockdown. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Khosa’s family said his beating death followed accusations by the soldiers that he was drinking a beer in his yard, which was not illegal even though buying alcohol was prohibited at the time because of South Africa’s strict coronavirus lockdown.

The sale of tobacco also is illegal during the lockdown, and middle-class whites discovered buying cigarettes have gotten off with a warning from police.

Montsha described how the soldiers, while beating Khosa, struck her with sjamboks, the heavy whips wielded by security forces during the apartheid era. Police and soldiers still carry the notorious weapons.
“The old house. You put new furniture in but it’s still the old house,” Fick said of the security forces.

In Kenya, the police force has for two decades been ranked the country’s most corrupt institution. It’s also Kenya’s most deadly, killing far more people than criminals do, according to human rights groups.

In the last three months in Kenya, 15 people, including a 13-year-old boy, have been killed by police while they enforce a curfew, according to a watchdog group. Human rights activists put the figure at 18.


In this Friday, May 8, 2020, file photo, a police officer holds a pistol during clashes with protesters near a burning tire barricade in the Kariobangi slum of Nairobi, Kenya. The killing of George Floyd in the United States has raised awareness over police violence in South Africa and Kenya. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)

The boy, Yasin Hussein Moyo, was shot in the stomach by police in March as he stood on the balcony of his home. Police have blamed a “stray bullet,” but witnesses say the officers deliberately started shooting at the boy’s apartment building as they patrolled the neighborhood during the curfew.

Kenya’s culture of an oppressive colonial police force is still intact, said Peter Kiama, the executive director of the Independent Medico Legal Unit, which tracks police abuse. There also is a security system that has sought to subdue opposition to the government and, in turn, has become corrupt.


FILE - In this Wednesday, June 3, 2020, file photo, a Maasai man jumps next to a new mural painted this week in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, showing George Floyd with the Swahili word "Haki" or "Justice." Floyd’s killing in the United States has raised awareness over police violence in South Africa and Kenya. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)

“There is a symbiotic relationship,” Kiama said.

When Kenya created two organizations nearly a decade ago to monitor and hold police accountable, the members of one of them found a severed human head in their new offices on the first day of work. Just in case the message wasn’t clear, there also was a piece of paper with the words: “Tread carefully.”

Kiama’s organization says 980 people have been killed by police in Kenya since 2013, and 90 percent of those were execution-style slayings.

Despite the decades of injustice and brutality, activists say there is no groundswell of public support for change in South Africa and Kenya, two of the biggest economies in Africa.

“I gave up on police violence being an issue around which one could get any kind of attention from politicians, or anyone,” said David Bruce, an expert on South African law enforcement for 20 years.

In her interview on national TV, Montsha looked at the camera and asked South Africans why no one was standing up for Khosa.

“We are crying out loud,” she said.


FILE - In this Tuesday, June 9, 2020, file photo, demonstrators protest the killing of George Floyd and police violence in both the U.S. and Kenya outside the Parliament building in Nairobi, Kenya. The killing of George Floyd in the United States has raised awareness of police violence in South Africa and Kenya. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)-


Odula reported from Nairobi, Kenya.

COVID-19 CLASS STRUGGLE

Activists in costume dig symbolic graves on Copacabana beach as a protest, organized by the NGO Rio de Paz, against the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, June 11, 2020. A Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered the government of President Jair Bolsonaro to resume publication of full COVID-19 data, including the cumulative death toll, following allegations the government was trying to hide the severity of the pandemic in Latin America’s biggest country. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)


People wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus walk through the subway, with a portrait of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin in the background, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, June 10, 2020. Moscow residents are no longer required to stay at home or obtain electronic passes for traveling around the city. All restrictions on taking walks, using public transportation or driving have been lifted as well. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

MORE PHOTOS HERE https://apnews.com/0a860b5b8c5f6801cca88e1f0af17c8e

Young people turned out to protest. 

Now, will they vote?

WILL GUN CONTROL ACTIVISTS JOIN BLM ACTIVISTS IN A UNITED FRONT TO EXPAND THE STRUGGLE AROUND VOTING AND CHANGING ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT IN THE USA. STARTING WITH SCHOOL BOARDS AND CITY COUNCILS. VOTING IS ABOUT ISSUES NOT POLITICIANS. 

YOUTH SHOULD JOIN THE DSA AND CHANGE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WITH BERNIES POLITICAL REVOLUTION.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES AFTER THE BALLOT BOX BACK TO THE STREETS!

By SARA BURNETT

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Protesters march through the streets of Manhattan, New York, Sunday, June 7, 2020. New York City lifted the curfew spurred by protests against police brutality ahead of schedule Sunday after a peaceful night, free of the clashes or ransacking of stores that rocked the city days earlier. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

CHICAGO (AP) — Young adults have filled streets across the country on a scale not seen since the 1960s to protest for racial justice after the death of George Floyd. But whether that energy translates to increased turnout in November is another question.

They could make a difference in the presidential race — polls show President Donald Trump is deeply unpopular with young voters — with control of the Senate and hundreds of local races also at stake. But some activists are concerned their focus will be on specific causes instead of voting.

“In a normal election year, turning out the youth vote is challenging,” said Carolyn DeWitt, executive director of Rock the Vote, which works to build political power among young people. “That’s even more true now. People’s minds are not on it.”

Voters under 30 have historically turned out to vote at much lower rates than older voters, though the 2018 midterm elections saw the highest turnout in a quarter-century among voters ages 18-29 — a spike attributed in part to youth-led movements like March for Our Lives against gun violence.

People participate in a Black Lives Matter rally on Mount Washington in Pittsburgh on Sunday, June 7, 2020, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, who died May 25 after being restrained by police in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

There are signs young people are getting more politically engaged. DeWitt said more people registered to vote through Rock the Vote’s online platforms last week — some 50,000 — than in any other week this year. The organization’s social media accounts had as many impressions between Monday and Friday of last week as it typically has in a month, with more than 1 million.
“It will just be incredibly important to us to make sure we’re protesting now and voting later,” DeWitt said.

That’s not assured. The coronavirus pandemic has halted traditional campaigning as well as big concerts and festivals, the kinds of places where campaigns and groups like Rock the Vote and HeadCount typically recruit young voters. On top of that, lawmakers’ efforts to change voting laws in some states could restrict younger voters like college students.

Joe Biden’s Democratic presidential campaign is banking on these voters supporting him when the choice is a binary one between Biden and Trump. But that’s not guaranteed.

“Our bar can’t be: Are you better than Trump?” said Cliff Albright, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, which works to register voters and organize black communities. “For folks who are angry, who are in the streets, or who are at home and not engaged, you just telling me you’re better than this nut — that’s not enough.”

Many young people are still unfamiliar with Biden, “and they certainly don’t know where he stands on issues,” said Heather Greven, spokesperson for NextGen America. The group plans to spend at least $45 million to target young voters in battleground states.

Biden said during a recent virtual fundraiser he thought the protests will energize young people to turn out for him. “Now they are engaged,” Biden said. “They feel it. They taste it. And they’re angry and they’re determined.”

His campaign hasn’t made major changes to its youth outreach amid the protests, which started after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee into the neck of Floyd, a black man who was handcuffed and crying out that he couldn’t breathe. Instead, Biden has stuck largely with an initiative known as “League 46” that combines groups such as Students for Biden and Young Professionals for Biden.

In an effort to appeal to younger, liberal voters, Biden has put progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on a climate change task force. But he doesn’t support some of the proposals that energized supporters of his primary rival Bernie Sanders such as “Medicare for All”.

Ja’Mal Green, 24, an activist in Chicago, said he and other young people were disappointed by Biden’s rejection of a call to “defund the police,” which has become a rallying cry for protesters. The former vice president said Monday an overhaul of policing is needed but can be done by putting conditions on federal funds.

That position may reassure older and moderate voters who helped Biden win the nomination, Green said, but young people want to see more change.

“If not, they’ll just say ‘to hell with the election,’” he said.

Many of the young people taking to the streets are focused on public officials with a more direct impact on their lives such as mayors, police chiefs and district attorneys because “they see that’s where the change is,” said Green, a Black Lives Matter leader who joined protesters in Minneapolis.
There were also protests in Louisville, Kentucky, over the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman fatally shot by police in her home in March.

Thousands of protesters gather and march peacefully from Huston-Tillotson University to the State Capitol in Austin, Texas chanting "Black Lives Matter" and "justice" on Sunday, June 7, 2020. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Tom Bergan, 22, attended a protest last week in Louisville, where he’s a HeadCount field organizer. In pre-pandemic days, HeadCount focused on registering young people at concerts and festivals, but that’s shifted to more online organizing since COVID-19. For Friday’s protests, Bergan printed off large QR codes that he hoisted on a poster board. Anyone who scanned the code on their phone was connected to an online voter registration page.

Bergan said the crowd was enthusiastic, with many already registered to vote, and much of the conversations were around Taylor’s death and local changes such as the decision to limit no-knock warrants. He said the moment reminds him of 2018, when he volunteered with HeadCount during a March for Our Lives in St. Louis, as thousands of young people turned out in cold, rainy weather.





That fall, turnout among voters ages 18-29 was nearly double what it was in 2014, with 28% of eligible young voters casting ballots, according to CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. They were much more likely to support Democratic than Republican congressional candidates, 64% to 34%, according to an AP VoteCast survey of more than 115,000 midterm voters nationwide.

That turnout is still less than in 2016 or 2012, presidential election years when about 45% of young voters turned out, according to CIRCLE, a drop from 2008, when Barack Obama was on the ballot and turnout soared to a level not seen since 1992.

Will 2020 bring another peak?

“That’s the big ‘if,’ and we don’t really know until November,” Bergan said.

Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

Luxury Boston hotel lets go workers, even as it reopens

Itsva Serrano, front office manager at the Sheraton Commander Hotel, in Cambridge, Mass., opens a door at the front entrance to the hotel near a sign with a coronavirus health advisory, Wednesday, June 10, 2020. In phase 2 of the state's plan to reopen the state, beginning Monday, June 8, hotels and motels are allowed to accept all guests, not just essential workers. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) 1/4 https://apnews.com/add226250d5cc6863ca450200bcbe428

BOSTON (AP) — One of Boston’s most luxurious hotels has let go about half its staff even though hotels in Massachusetts are now allowed to reopen under phase 2 of Gov. Charlie Baker’s coronavirus economic recovery plan.

The nearly 200 workers laid off by the Four Seasons were told they would be able to reapply for their jobs, but some tell The Boston Globe they received less than half the severance they were entitled to.

The hotel, located on Boylston Street and overlooking the Public Garden, furloughed employees after closing March 24, then conducted the layoffs last month. It is currently taking reservations starting June 23.

The state’s hotels were allowed to reopen to guests on Monday, but still aren’t allowed to schedule any events, functions or meetings.

“The impact of COVID-19 on the travel and hospitality industry has been devastating and Four Seasons Hotel Boston is not immune,” hotel management said in a statement. “The extreme loss of revenues has forced us to make some difficult decisions to reduce costs while managing the short- and long-term business realities. This includes permanent layoffs.”

Unite Here Local 26 President Carlos Aramayo is concerned that the layoffs are the beginning of widespread terminations in the lodging industry in an attempt to permanently eliminate jobs or start over with a lower-paid workforce. The hospitality workers’ union is assisting the Four Seasons staff, which is not unionized.

Mass layoffs in the industry would disproportionately affect people of color, he said.

With the help of the union, 46 former Four Seasons employees sent a letter to hotel management rejecting the “disrespectful, even insulting” severance offer.

DUH OH!
Milley says he was wrong to accompany Trump on church walk

 In this June 1, 2020 file photo, President Donald Trump departs the White House to visit outside St. John's Church, in Washington. Part of the church was set on fire during protests on Sunday night. Walking behind Trump from left are, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Milley says his presence “created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” He called it “a mistake” that he has learned from. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Army Gen. Mark Milley, the nation’s top military officer, said Thursday he was wrong to accompany President Donald Trump on a walk through Lafayette Square that ended in a photo op at a church. He said his presence “created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”

“I should not have been there,” the Joint Chiefs chairman said in remarks to a National Defense University commencement ceremony.

Trump’s June 1 walk through the park to pose with a Bible at a church came after authorities used pepper spray and flash bangs to clear the park and streets of largely peaceful protesters demonstrating in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minnesota in police custody

Milley’s statement risked the wrath of a president sensitive to anything hinting of criticism of events he has staged. It comes as Pentagon leaders’ relations with the White House are still tense after a disagreement last week over Trump’s threat to use federal troops to quell civil unrest triggered by Floyd’s death.

Milley said his presence and the photographs compromised his commitment to a military divorced from politics.

“My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” Milley said. “As a commissioned uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from, and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it.”

After protesters were cleared from the Lafayette Square area, Trump led an entourage that included Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where he held up a Bible for photographers and then returned to the White House.

Esper had not said publicly that he erred by being with Trump at that moment. He told a news conference last week that when they left the White House he thought they were going to inspect damage in the Square and at the church and to mingle with National Guard troops in the area.

Milley’s comments at the National Defense University were his first public statements about the Lafayette Square event on June 1, which the White House has hailed as a “leadership moment” for Trump akin to Winston Churchill inspecting damage from German bombs in London during World War II.

The public uproar following Floyd’s death has created multiple layers of extraordinary tension between Trump and senior Pentagon officials. When Esper told reporters on June 3 that he had opposed Trump bringing active-duty troops on the streets of the nation’s capital to confront protesters and potential looters, Trump castigated him in a face-to-face meeting.

Just this week, Esper and Milley let it be known through their spokesmen that they were open to a “bipartisan discussion” of whether the 10 Army bases named for Confederate Army officers should be renamed as a gesture aimed at disassociating the military from the racist legacy of the Civil War.

On Wednesday, Trump said he would never allow the names to be changed, catching some in the Pentagon by surprise.

The Marine Corps last week moved ahead with a ban on public displays of the Confederate Army battle flag on its bases, and the Navy this week said it plans a similar ban applied to its bases, ships and planes. Trump has not commented publicly on those moves, which do not require White House or congressional approval.

Milley used his commencement address, which was prerecorded and presented as a video message in line with social distancing due to the coronavirus pandemic, to raise the matter of his presence with Trump in Lafayette Square. He introduced the subject to his audience of military officers and civilian officials in the context of advice from an Army officer and combat veteran who has spent 40 years in uniform

He said all senior military leaders must be aware that their words and actions will be closely watched.

“And I am not immune,” he said, noting the photograph of him at Lafayette Square. “That sparked a national debate about the role of the military in civil society.” He expressed regret at having been there and said the lesson to be taken from that moment is that all in uniform are not just soldiers but also citizens.

“We must hold dear the principle of an apolitical military that is so deeply rooted in the very essence of our republic,” he said. “It takes time and work and effort, but it may be the most important thing each and every one of us does every single day.”

Milley also expressed his outrage at the Floyd killing and urged military officers to recognize as a reflection of centuries of injustice toward African Americans.

“What we are seeing is the long shadow of our original sin in Jamestown 401 years ago,” he said, referring to the year in which the first enslaved Africans arrived on the shores of colonial Virginia.

Milley said the military has made important progress on race issues but has much yet to do, including creating the conditions for a larger proportion of African American officers to rise to the military’s senior ranks. He noted that his service, the Army, has just one African American four-star general, and mentioned that the Air Force is about to swear in the first-ever African American service chief.

Top US general says wrong to appear with Trump at protest site

AFP/File / Brendan SmialowskiDonald Trump walks with Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley (R) at his side and Defense Secretary Mark Esper (middle) just behind him on June 1 to a church near the White House where Trump posed for pictures

America's top general said Thursday he was wrong to appear with President Donald Trump in a photo op near the White House last week, staged after the area was forcefully cleared of anti-racism protesters.

"I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of military involvement in domestic politics," General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of the controversial June 1 incident.

Milley's comments appeared likely to further strain the already fraught relations between US military leaders and the White House.

Relations have frayed over Trump's move to involve the Pentagon in efforts to quell protests and looting around the country following the killing of African American George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer.

- Battle uniform -

AFP/File / Brendan SmialowskiUS President Donald Trump holds up a bible in front of St John's Episcopal Church after walking across Lafayette Park from the White House in Washington, DC on June 1

Milley and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper were both strongly criticized for participating in what was widely seen as a political show by Trump, who walked with officials from the White House to pose in front of St. John's Episcopal Church, holding up a bible.

Minutes earlier, hundreds of peaceful protestors were forced from Lafayette Park between the White House and the church by police and national guard troops firing smoke bombs and tear gas-like pepper rounds.

Milley's presence was particularly criticized as he was wearing his camouflage battle uniform.

Normally military officials wear their formal dress uniform when holding meetings in the White House, and for many it implied Milley's support for Trump's stated desire to deploy active duty US troops against protesters.

In a pre-recorded video message, Milley told new graduates of the National Defense University that pictures of him and Esper walking with Trump "sparked a national debate about the role of the military in civil society."

Trump had summoned Milley and Esper to the White House to discuss the extraordinary measure of using active military troops in addition to national guards to confront protestors.

Pentagon officials have said both had little time to prepare for the meeting, which caught Milley in his battle uniform and Esper as they were headed to a separate non-public meeting.

Nor did they know ahead of time that national guard troops were going to clear the park using chemical munitions to force the protestors out, Pentagon officials said.

Several former holders of Milley's position blasted him and Esper for accompanying Trump and allowing the military to be politicized.

"I am deeply worried that as they execute their orders, the members of our military will be co-opted for political purposes," said former Joint Chiefs chairman admiral Mike Mullen.

- Freedom to protest -

Two days later Esper announced that he would not support Trump's desire to invoke the rarely used Insurrection Act to call up active troops to deal with the protests.

That, according to media reports, infuriated Trump who had to be convinced by White House advisors and senior lawmakers not to fire Esper.

In his speech Thursday, Milley stressed that US citizens have the constitutional right to protest peacefully.

"We should all be proud that the vast majority of protests have been peaceful. Peaceful protests mean that American freedom is working," he said.

"We in the military will continue to protect the rights and freedoms of all American people," he added.

Long seen as radical, Black Lives Matter goes mainstream

By DAVID CRARY and AARON MORRISON

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 In this June 3, 2020, file photo, a protester waves a city of Chicago flag emblazoned with the acronym BLM for Black Lives Matter, outside the Batavia, Ill., City Hall during a protest over the death of George Floyd. Black Lives Matter has gone mainstream — and black activists are carefully assessing how they should respond. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

For much of its seven-year existence, the Black Lives Matter movement has been seen by many Americans as a divisive, even radical force. Its very name enraged its foes, who countered with the slogans “Blue Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter.”

Times have changed — dramatically so — as evidenced during the wave of protests sparked by George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. Black Lives Matter has gone mainstream — and black activists are carefully assessing how they should respond.

A few examples of the changed landscape:

Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican stalwart, joined a Black Lives Matter march. Some NASCAR drivers, whose fan base includes legions of conservative whites, embraced the phrase. So did NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The mayor of Washington ordered the words painted in large letters on a street near the White House. Now, Black Lives Matter Plaza turns up in driving directions from Google Maps.

Like many black activists, Sakira Cook is pleased by such developments but also cautious. She and others worry that businesses and politicians will hijack the slogan without any real commitment to doing the hard work needed to fight racism.

“Black Lives Matter is not just a rallying cry,” said Cook, director of the Justice Reform Program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“It actually means you have to start to interrogate the systemic racism and inequalities that exist in our society and help to dismantle them. You must make sure you’re not co-opting this for your own purposes.”



The Black Lives Matter movement emerged amid anger over the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012.

As a slogan, “Black lives matter” soon became as widely heard at protests as “No justice, no peace.”

Nationally, the phrase was praised for its clarity and attacked as strident and hostile toward police. But support grew as the list of slain black people got longer: Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile.

“When we started Black Lives Matter, it was really to have a larger conversation around this country about its relationship to black people,” said Patrisse Cullors, one of three black women who founded the Black Lives Matter Global Network, with chapters throughout the U.S. and in Britain and Canada. “What keeps happening, time and time again, is we’re witnessing black people die on camera, and there is little to no accountability.”

While large donations poured into the new, loose-knit group of black-led grassroots organizations, prominent figures within the movement were subjected to years of rebukes and threats from police, their unions and elected officials.

Cullors said she and others were dismissed as too militant to be taken seriously by many of the individuals and corporations in the mainstream that now embrace their message.

In 2018, news reports revealed that the FBI’s counterterrorism division had begun tracking anti-police threats from black activists in the wake of deadly ambushes on police officers in New York, Texas and Louisiana. Many Black Lives Matter activists feared it was a repeat of the Cointelpro era, when the FBI illegally conducted surveillance and sabotage against civil rights groups and other organizations suspected of having links to the Communist Party in the 1950s and ’60s.

Today, the Black Lives Matter movement boasts a following of millions across social media platforms. A coalition known as the Movement for Black Lives, formed in 2014, now includes more than 150 affiliate organizations that have organized around such causes as defunding police departments and reinvesting in struggling black communities.

Its agenda focuses heavily on overhauling police training, the use of force and the punishment of rogue officers. The movement is also pressing to erase economic inequality and disparities in education and health care.

“There are hundreds of thousands of black visionaries around the world that are doing the work that people keep saying, ‘Oh, that’s never going to happen. ... Not in this lifetime,’” Cullors said. “And look what happened. Something gets unlocked, and because we’ve already laid the seeds, we’ve already had the conversations, the people doing the work get to bear the fruit.”

Although the current surge of support for the movement is vindicating, it’s not sufficient to realize the original vision, Cullors said.

Malik Shabazz, president of Black Lawyers for Justice, praised “Black lives matter” as “one of the most brilliant and creative phrases of our generation,” one that has won acceptance well beyond the movement.

“There’s a danger it will become co-opted and mainstreamed,” he said. “But right now, anyone in our struggle would be happy more people are using it.”

Shabazz said it is important for black people to remain at the forefront of the movement, even as more Americans of other races voice support.

“It’s up to us that we don’t get happy with a couple of weeks of protest and demonstrations,” he said. “This is a good start. We just have to dig in and stay for the long haul. “

Khalilah Brown-Dean, a political science professor at Quinnipiac University who has written about inequality and criminal justice reform, said uttering the slogan is easy. What comes next matters more.

It’s much more important for public officials and policymakers to inculcate that belief into the very fabric of how they lead and govern,” she said. “Painting a street, marching in a rally, or wearing kente cloth are only useful if these symbolic acts translate into substantive action.”

The counter-slogans that emerged in 2014-15 — “Blue Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter” — have surfaced only sporadically in the past two weeks. Plans for a Blue Lives Matter rally in Las Vegas were scrapped after the city’s police department refused to help promote it.

“All Lives Matter,” from the start, angered some black activists who said it minimized the entrenched racism faced by black people.

Last week, longtime Sacramento Kings TV broadcaster Grant Napear resigned after tweeting “ALL LIVES MATTER” when asked his opinion on the Black Lives Matter movement. On Saturday, the top editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer resigned amid a furor over the headline “Buildings Matter, Too.”

AP PHOTOS: 
1 year on, tumult of Hong Kong protests echoes
https://apnews.com/f301c03e63f0e75d2e17104ad2c53f34

As protests grow, Belgium faces its racist colonial past

By RAF CASERT

1 of 17

 https://apnews.com/b405027b7232c42b8d9dab407ff87aa1/gallery/5c89763e6f054791a5e3d7f62e636559
In this June 10, 2020, photo, a statue of Belgium's King Leopold II is smeared with paint and graffiti in the center of Brussels. With the protests sweeping the world in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, King Leopold II, who reigned from 1865 to 1909, is now increasingly seen as a stain on the nation. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

WHITE SUPREMACY ARYAN SUPREMACY IS THE CULTURE OF IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM

BLACK LIVES MATTER IS A GLOBAL RESPONSE 

TO THE GLOBALIZED RACISM OF IMPERIALISM

TERVUREN, Belgium (AP) — When it comes to ruthless colonialism and racism, few historical figures are more notorious than Leopold II, the Belgian king who held Congo as his personal property and may have been responsible for the deaths of millions of Congolese more than a century ago.

Yet across Belgium, the monarch’s name is still found on streets and tunnels. Cities are dotted with his statues and busts, even as evidence of his misdeeds has piled up over the decades.

Now a reckoning seems to be at hand.

The protests sweeping the world after George Floyd’s death in the U.S. have added fuel to a movement to confront Europe’s role in the slave trade and its colonial past. Leopold is increasingly seen as a stain on the nation over which he reigned from 1865 to 1909. Demonstrators want him removed from public view.

In just the last week, a long-running trickle of dissent that resulted in little more than occasional vandalism has turned into a torrent, with statues of Leopold defaced in a half-dozen cities. In the port town of Antwerp, where much of the Congolese rubber, minerals and other natural riches entered the nation, one statue was burned and had to be removed for repairs. It is unclear whether it will ever come back.

“When you erect a statue, it lauds the actions of who is represented. The Germans would not get it into their head to erect statues of Hitler and cheer them,” said Mireille-Tsheusi Robert, president of the Congolese action group Bamko-Cran, which wants all Leopold statues removed from Belgian cities. “For us, Leopold has committed a genocide.”

On Wednesday, an internet petition to rid the capital, Brussels, of any Leopold statue swept past 70,000 signatures. Also this week, regional education authorities promised history course reforms to better explain the true character of colonialism. And at the University of Mons in southern Belgium, academic authorities removed a bust of the king, saying they wanted to make sure “nobody could be offended by its presence.”

Similar efforts are unfolding in Britain, where at least two statues of prominent figures connected to the slave trade have been taken down by protesters or city officials. London’s mayor has promised a review of all monuments. In the U.S., protesters tore down a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis along Richmond, Virginia’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday night. The death of Floyd has prompted similar Confederate monument removals around the nation.

In Kinshasa, a replica of the main Leopold statue in Brussels had already been relegated to a museum park ages ago. The equestrian bronze was first erected in 1928, but seven years after independence from Belgium in 1960 it was ordered taken down by then dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. In 2005, authorities put it back up, intending it to serve as a reminder of the horrors of colonial rule — with an updated plaque. Only a day later, though, it was removed following a public outcry. For the last decade, it has sat in a park of colonial monuments.

In this June 9, 2020, photo, the bust of Belgium's King Leopold II is smeared with paint and graffiti on the grounds of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. With the protests sweeping the world in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, King Leopold II, who reigned from 1865 to 1909, is now increasingly seen as a stain on the nation. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Leopold ruled Congo as a fiefdom, forcing many of its people into slavery to extract resources for his personal profit. His early rule, starting in 1885, was famous for its brutality, which some experts say left as many as 10 million dead.

After his ownership of Congo ended in 1908, he handed the central African country over to the Belgian state, which continued to hold sway over an area 75 times its size until the nation became independent in 1960.

Leopold has come to symbolize the racism and inequality citizens of Congolese descent have had to endure. Next to the royal palace stands an equestrian statue with Leopold gazing solemnly toward the horizon. On Wednesday, his hands and eyes were covered with red paint, and expletives were spray-painted on the side of the monument.

Maximilian Christiaens, an architect with a Congolese mother and Belgian father, who came to see the statue after the defacing, realizes the issue is part of his identity. Since Congo achieved independence, Belgium’s Congolese population has swelled to about 230,000 in a nation of 11 million.

“You know, we feel at home here, but seeing symbols like this in the city and all over the country gives us the opposite signal,” Christiaens said. He would like to see them torn down.

A similar struggle is playing out in the majestic woods east of Brussels in Tervuren, where the palatial Royal Museum for Central Africa stands. It was built over a century ago to glorify Leopold’s colonial exploits and to convince Belgium citizens that their country was delivering civilization to the heart of wild Africa.

In this May 6, 1961, file photo, the bust of former Belgian King Leopold II (1835-1909) lies on the ground on the Avenue General De Gaulle in Stanleyville, Congo. With the protests sweeping the world in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, King Leopold II, who reigned from 1865 to 1909, is now increasingly seen as a stain on the nation. (AP Photo/File)

In this June 9, 2020, photo, the bust of Belgium's King Leopold II is smeared with red paint and graffiti on the grounds of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. With the protests sweeping the world in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, King Leopold II, who reigned from 1865 to 1909, is now increasingly seen as a stain on the nation. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Museum Director Guido Gryseels fully understands the challenges and the sensitivities, especially after a Leopold statue was defaced in the gardens outside the museum last week. He has sought to shift the museum’s views on colonialism into a contemporary reassessment of a flawed past. This week, the Black Lives Matter logo was displayed on digital screens at the museum entrance.

In this June 9, 2020, photo, a sculpture of an elephant and its riders stands outside the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. The present museum was completely renovated in 2018. One of the biggest challenges they faced was presenting a contemporary vision of Africa in a building which had been originally designed as a colonial museum. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

In this photo taken on Tuesday, June 9, 2020, a man stands at the ticket kiosk as a message is displayed on a screen above his head at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. The present museum was completely renovated in 2018. One of the biggest challenges they faced was presenting a contemporary vision of Africa in a building which had been originally designed as a colonial museum. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

As part of a major renovation he oversaw, Gryseels consigned the racist statues of Congolese and the glorifying busts of the Belgian military to the “depot” of outdated sculptures in the museum’s cellars.

“We wanted to keep them somewhere so that the visitors could still see, so that we could explain: ‘This is how we looked at Africa before,’” Gryseels said.

Upstairs, in the grand rooms, the only bust of Leopold on display is made of ivory and aims to explain how the plunder of the country extended to the wholesale slaughter of elephants.

As a listed architectural treasure, Leopold’s royal double L monogram is still plastered all over the building. But Congolese artists have been asked to make a counterpoint, and in the main hall now stands a sculpture of a skull of a Congolese chief who was beheaded by a Belgian. In front of statues that could not be moved because they were protected, there are now transparent drapes with images criticizing Belgian actions in Congo.

In this June 9, 2020, file image from ATV video, a statue of Belgium's King Leopold II is removed from its pedestal, in Antwerp, Belgium. Authorities in Antwerp removed the statue of the country's former monarch Leopold II for repairs on Tuesday after it was damaged during anti-racism protests. (ATV via AP, File)

“It would have been impossible 30 years ago, but there is a step forward,” Robert said. Still, she said the changes do not go far enough and the museum needs to better embrace Congolese in its management structure.

Just about everybody acknowledges that Belgian society needs to take a hard look at its past. The Catholic church, the dominant force in education during much of Belgium’s existence, was at worst an active participant in colonialism, at best a passive bystander. And since many Belgians had family members who went to Congo to seek their fortunes, there is a sense of unease in confronting the history of racism and exploitation.

“The amnesia is linked to the money the Belgians made in Congo,” Robert said.
For many years, Belgian colonial authorities peddled the idea that the king went to Congo to stop the slave trade, Gryseels said, when it was really “a pretext to make big economic gains.”

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Jean-Yves Kamale in Kinshasa contributed.
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Jefferson Davis statue torn down in Richmond, Virginia
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In this photo provided by @thicketoftrash, police stand near the toppled statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis along Monument Drive, Wednesday night, June 10, 2020, in Richmond, Va. (@thicketoftrash via AP)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Protesters pulled down a more than century-old statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the former capital of the Confederacy, adding it to the list of rebel monuments damaged as demonstrations continued following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

The bronze statue, which stood before a colonnade along Richmond’s fame Monument Avenue, lay on its back with dark paint on its face and an arm outstretched after demonstrators pulled it down late Wednesday.

Police were on the scene and videos on social media showed a crowd cheering as the statue, installed by a Confederate heritage group during the days of legalized segregation in the South, was towed away.



The statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis is splattered with paint after it was toppled Wednesday night, June 10, 2020, along Monument Drive in Richmond, Va. (Dylan Garner/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)



The Davis likeness, located a few blocks away from a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that the state is trying to remove, wasn’t the only Confederate memorial to come down within a few hours in Virginia.

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About 80 miles (130 kilometers) away, protesters in Portsmouth beheaded and then pulled down four statues that were part of a Confederate monument, according to news outlets.

Efforts to tear one of the statues down began around 8:20 p.m., but the rope they were using snapped, The Virginian-Pilot reported.



In this photo provided by @thicketoftrash, a police officer looks toward the toppled statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis along Monument Drive, Wednesday night, June 10, 2020, in Richmond, Va. (@thicketoftrash via AP)

The crowd was frustrated by the Portsmouth City Council’s decision to put off moving the monument. They switched to throwing bricks from the post that held the plaque they had pulled down as they initially worked to bring down the statue.

The Pilot reported that they then started to dismantle the monument one piece at a time as a brass band played in the streets and other protesters danced.

A protester in his 30s was hit in the head as the monument fell, causing him to lose consciousness, Portsmouth NAACP Vice President Louie Gibbs told the newspaper. The crowd quieted as the man was taken to a hospital. His condition was not immediately clear.
Full Coverage: Death of George Floyd

A flag tied to the monument was lit on fire, and the flames burned briefly at the base of one of the statues.


In this image from video, police stand near a toppled statue of Jefferson Davis on Wednesday night, June 10, 2020, in Richmond, Va. Protesters tore down the statue of Confederate President Davis along Monument Avenue. The statue in the former capital of the Confederacy was toppled shortly before 11 p.m., news outlets reported. (WWBT-TV via AP)


Demonstrators have been removing monuments they see as symbols of the United States’ ingrained racism since naitonal protests began over the death of Floyd, who died after a police officer in Minneapolis pressed down on his neck with a leg for nearly 9 minutes.

While some people say such monuments are important reminders of history, opponents contend the tributes inappropriately glorify people who led a rebellion that sought to uphold slavery.

A statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond was torn down by protesters, set on fire and then submerged into a lake on Tuesday. News outlets reported the Columbus statue was toppled less than two hours after protesters gathered in the city’s Byrd Park chanting for the statue to be taken down.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam last week ordered the removal of an iconic statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which is four blocks away from where the Davis statue stood. A judge on Monday issued an injunction preventing officials from removing the monuments for the next 10 days

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