Speaking Up Against Police Terror in Baton Rouge and New Orleans

Audio: 33min

An update from the protestors in Baton Rouge and a history of police terror in New Orleans from Malcolm Suber.

Following the funeral for Alton Sterling on Friday, at the behest of the Sterling family, protestors paused their demonstrations.

On Saturday, they were back at it. Three events took place: an early afternoon community march, a demonstration at the Triple S Foodmart, the site of Sterling’s murder, and another one outside of Baton Rouge Police headquarters.

I caught up with those who gathered with food, music, signs at Circle K outside Baton Rouge Police headquarters. Protestors there showed up to speak up against the July 5 police-involved fatal shooting of Alton Sterling and widespread inequity in Louisiana’s criminal justice system. The group was a few dozen in the afternoon, ballooning to fifty as the sun began to set. They held signs with messages like “Police the Police,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “White Silence is Violence.” Cars were honking in approval of the messages.

I’ll share a couple of memorable interactions. One pair in a pickup truck idled at a red light for a while, perplexed looks on their faces as they read the signs. When a protestor spun their “White Silence is Violence” sign around to the side that held its lengthier message, the pair began enthusiastic honking; the message was, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Another car pulled up, and to the amusement slash embarrassment of the elderly person in the passenger seat, the driver honked away, laying on the horn incessantly and gleefully. With so much enthusiasm and laughter from protestors and car passengers alike, the horn reached the end of its functioning life. As the light turned and the car accelerated past, the horn made its last hurrah, before going silent forevermore.

The site of this protest was closed Sunday morning when, in a separate incident, police held a manhunt in the Baton Rouge shooting, but the protestors gathered again outside of Baton Rouge Police Headquarters Sunday evening.

It’s more important than ever to humanize those who gather to protest there. Few of the cars that go past harass the protestors. More passersby draw inaccurate conclusions about who the protestors are. So, this morning we’ll hear an interview with Redell, creator of The Resistance, a Baton Rouge faith-based activist group, and a short message from Melissa, a daily protestor at site.

Next, we hear from Malcom Suber, New Orleans community activist, on Moral Panics & Mass Incarceration in the Neoliberal City: Katrina After 10. Suber presents a timeline of communities speaking up against police terror, which is deeply important to learn and know given today’s movement.

This audio is credited to "Katrina After Ten,” a program that brought together activists, artists, and intellectuals to discuss critical issues such as environmental racism, gender discrimination, gentrification, mass incarceration, education and privatization; as well as the history and future of social movements in New Orleans. An archive of their work is available from Brown University on YouTube.