Photo credit: Tea Krulos
A peaceful march on the streets in Shorewood and Whitefish Bay on Saturday, June 6, 2020.
“BLACK LIVES MATTER!” “SAY HIS NAME...GEORGE FLOYD! SAY HER NAME...BREONNA TAYLOR!” “I CAN’T BREATH!” “NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!” “WALK WITH US!” “DON’T ARREST ME, ARREST THE POLICE!”
The streets of the Northshore communities of Shorewood and Whitefish Bay were filled with thousands of people chanting Saturday afternoon, one of several marches going on around the city throughout the day. This followed a long and sometimes violent week of protesting—on Tuesday night protestors were confronted by riot cops, who launched teargas canisters and pushed the crowd back on 6th and McKinley, throwing some to the ground and arresting them.
The excuse for the show of force, a “Molotov cocktail” allegedly thrown at them, turned out to be a crumpled plastic water bottle. Other nights protestors were met with flash grenades, tear gas, smoke bombs and billy clubs.
Multicultural, Multigenerational
Photo credit: Tea Krulos
Earlier in the week a Trump tweet referred to protestors as “killers, terrorists, arsonists, anarchists, thugs, hoodlums, looters, ANTIFA & others,” one of many of tweets with similar language, but the crowd of thousands that assembled at Atwater Park Saturday afternoon was accurately described by someone who spoke to protestors as “multicultural and multigenerational, a body of a movement that has feet and has a heart.” The speaker alluded to some of the conflict throughout the week, noting “If it’s not making you uncomfortable, it’s not working” and led the crowd in a chant of “I BELIEVE WE CAN WIN!”
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Another speaker told the crowd that “the leaders of this city and state need to wake up and treat us all with equality.”
The weather was beautiful and the crowd marched, chanted, and at certain points kneeled in mass, winding several miles from Shorewood to Whitefish Bay and back, through Lake Drive, Silver Spring, Santa Monica Boulevard and Oakland Avenue. It was well organized with volunteers spread throughout the route handing out bottles of water, snacks, hand sanitizer, masks (most people wore them) and attending to garbage detail. The neighborhoods were supportive—several neighbors stood in their yards with signs showing support and some set up tables with bottled water.
Photo credit: Tea Krulos
Signs Everywhere
There were hundreds of signs that read “BLACK LIVES MATTER,” lists of those that had died at the hands of police, and others that had slogans like “DESEGREGATE THE NORTHSHORE” and “CUT THE CRAP, KAREN (SERIOUSLY).”
Another protest that had started in Big Bay Park in Whitefish Bay around the same time converged with the Shorewood group and the two groups marched together. Elsewhere in the city, players from the Milwaukee Bucks, including star player Giannis Antetokounmpo, joined a march on 27th and Clybourn.
There was little police presence on the Northshore march. The only confrontation was a woman who parked her car in the middle of Oakland Avenue near the Metro Market and left it there, for unknown reasons. When protesters confronted her about it, a heated exchange followed, she spit on one of them, and walked off as the march worked its way around her car. Later that night, protestors stood in front of her house, informing curious neighbors on her behavior until police arrived and arrested her.
For more of our coverage of the protests occurring across Milwaukee, click here.
