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When Janelle Wells saw the video of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody May 25, she couldn’t bear to watch the end.
“I saw the knee on his neck, and I knew where it was going,” she said.
The video brought the 40-year-old Kakaako resident flashbacks to when she lived in Stanford, Fla. — right across the street from where Trayvon Martin died.
“I think about him every day, to be honest,” she said. “I have two kids now. My daughter is 4 and my son is 2. I think about, Will they be able to live? Will they be able to grow up and develop? Like, how could someone see a threat? It breaks my heart every day.”
Martin was a black 17-year-old who was fatally shot in 2012 by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Martin was on his way home — unarmed — and carried only a bag of candy and iced tea.
The Zimmerman case brought nationwide attention and social unrest. In 2013 Zimmerman was found not guilty, sparking the Black Lives Matter movement.
Today is Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the day in 1865 that all enslaved black people learned they had been freed from bondage.
For many white Americans, recent protests over police brutality have increased their awareness of Juneteenth’s significance.
Juneteenth celebrations today will be marked from coast to coast with marches and demonstrations of civil disobedience, along with expressions of black joy in spite of an especially traumatic time for the nation. And like the nationwide protests that followed the deaths at police hands of black men and women in Minnesota, Kentucky and Georgia, Juneteenth celebrations are likely to be remarkably more multiracial.
On Oahu today the Popolo Project, a Hawaii-based nonprofit organization, is hosting a gathering at Makalei Beach Park, 3111 Diamond Head Road, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
The founders of the national Black Lives Matter movement — Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi — set a goal to combat violence against the black community and seek justice for those killed by the police and white supremacists.
In recent weeks the cry of Black Lives Matter became more powerful. More than 2,000 U.S. cities are protesting peacefully, but some have seen riots and looting.
“I’m surprised we’re here at this point with this movement,” said Wells, the Kakaako resident. “There have been so many incidents and so many cases that I thought so much would’ve changed. I feel lied to. … Now it’s taken this horrific act for the world to see how bad things are for people of color, particularly black people in this country.”
Hawaii’s protests so far have been peaceful, while seeing a growing number of demonstrators on Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hawaii island.
May 29 was the first day of the protests that reached over 100 people rallying at the state Capitol. That number climbed to 10,000 demonstrators on June 7, when marchers walked from the Ala Moana Beach Park to the Capitol. On Sunday about 500 people marched the same route in a peaceful protest for Breonna Taylor, a black EMT who was fatally shot by police in Kentucky.
African Americans make up 2.2% of Hawaii’s population, compared with 13% in the U.S. as a whole.
Black Americans nationwide are three times more likely to be killed by the police than white Americans.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed by a former police officer and his son while running through a South Georgia neighborhood. The two men and a third man were arrested and charged with murder.
Taylor was fatally shot eight times by Louisville police in her own home. But the officers were at the wrong house and have not been arrested or charged.
Floyd’s death was the breaking point that re-flared the Black Lives Matter movement. All four police officers were arrested and charged with murder.
Kenneth Lawson is familiar with police misconduct. The former civil rights and defense attorney hasn’t gone a day without crying after he saw the video of Floyd.
“This one is a little bit different,” he said. “I grew up in the Midwest, and when you look at that videotape and you see that look in that cop’s eye, the reason why it’s painful is because a lot black men and women seen that look for years when we get pulled over. That look was the same look when I got pulled over in high school. I said, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ That look he gave me is ‘(Racial slur), I’m gonna do whatever I wanna do with you, so you better shut up before it gets worse.’ That’s that look.”
Lawson represented families of people who were killed by police officers. The last case he had was in 2001 in Cincinnati. That was the same year that Cincinnati riots occurred due to police killings of black citizens.
”What’s different this time around is that you see the amount of unity that we have today,” he said referring to the Black Lives Matter movement. “You’ve been seeing it across the land and across the world. People are riding with us. People are just tired of what is going on.”
Akiemi Glenn, executive director and founder of the Popolo Project, the nonprofit hosting today’s Juneteenth gathering, said the amount of support of Black Lives Matter in Hawaii was smaller in 2013 compared with 2020.
“People were largely silent,” she said.
Glenn said that around 2014 or 2015 there was a group of people who stood in solidarity with black people. However, it was criticized and met with altercations.
“People threw water bottles, rubbish and tried to start fights with them,” she said. “Here in Hawaii, I remember that as being this really important point for our black community, but others felt that this is not a thing that we can talk about here for many people.”
In 2015 there were discussions of creating a Black Lives Matter chapter in Honolulu. Glenn said the decision was made to not have a chapter here, but “rather we would spend time exploring things that are about the black community here but also in our specific cultural and political context.”
About two years later the Popolo Project was created to redefine what it means to be black in Hawaii, according to the organization’s website, thepopoloproject.org. “Popolo” is a term used in Hawaii to describe black people. “A popolo is a local boy … from Harlem,” according to “Pidgen to the Max,” by Douglas Simonson, Pat Sasaki and Ken Sakata.
A new generation of the movement
Pearl City resident Lachae McColor, 24, experienced racism in Hawaii and the mainland.
She was teased for her gap teeth, curly hair and skin color. She said kids would bully her by calling her a monkey or dirty.
People would call her by a racial slur.
She broke down in tears explaining her childhood.
Growing up in Hawaii, she had to prove her “localness.”
McColor is mixed: Hawaiian, black, Filipino and white.
She she faced backlash when she went to college on the mainland for being “light skinned.”
In other cases she noticed people who walked toward her would turn away or clench their bags when they came near her.
When she turned 16 she learned about the Black Lives Matter movement and hasn’t seen anything this big since the Rodney King riot.
“There wasn’t much coverage on it,” she said. “It feels like we were in our own little world, so we just like to face things that are happening in Hawaii only and not really acknowledging what’s really going on in the world.”
McColor marched with her dad on June 7. Her dad grew up as black man in Detroit realizing that he had it worse. She said being with him during the march meant the world to her.
“I was crying at the protest because it was beautiful to see all walks of life in one area protesting for black lives,” she said. “Seeing people say black lives matter, and actually meaning it, is so surreal.”
Moanalua High School student Nikkya Taliaferro, 16, was one of the youth organizers who led the June 7 march.
She noticed there was a little bit of pushback from some part the community to focus on other problems rather than that black lives matter.
“I understand their concerns because we don’t live in a predominately black area, so they might not understand those issues and understand why it’s so important to advocate for it,” she said.
Taliaferro voiced her frustration at the June 7 protest, saying how her generation shouldn’t be the ones to fix the issues.
“My generation should not be left to pick up the pieces,” she said. “My generation should not be the only ones focusing on this issue.”
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JUNETEENTH
>> What: Gathering to mark Juneteenth
>> Who: Hosted by the Popolo Project, a Hawaii-based nonprofit organization
>> Where: Makalei Beach Park, 3111 Diamond Head Road
>> When: Today from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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