Civil Rights

Facebook live stream of youth led Protect Black Lives protest documents post curfew march

On Friday, well into the night, Uprise RI reporters Will James and Jackson Cantrell covered the youth-led Protect Black Lives protest in Providence where a record setting 10,000 people marched from Kennedy Plaza to the Rhode Island State House to protest police murder of Black folk and police brutality in our State. Most of the crowd left before curfew, but

Rhode Island News: Facebook live stream of youth led Protect Black Lives protest documents post curfew march

June 6, 2020, 8:43 am

By Steve Ahlquist

On Friday, well into the night, Uprise RI reporters Will James and Jackson Cantrell covered the youth-led Protect Black Lives protest in Providence where a record setting 10,000 people marched from Kennedy Plaza to the Rhode Island State House to protest police murder of Black folk and police brutality in our State. Most of the crowd left before curfew, but the protest continued as around 300 youth remained.

After a standoff with military police at the State House, ending around 9PM, organizers announced that the crowd should march to City Hall, beginning a multiracial, youth march through Downcity and the West End of Providence which would last over 3 hours. Uprise RI stayed with the protestors for the entire march, livestreaming on Facebook.

Well over 97,000 people joined the live stream, which was spread over three videos. Based on information from one source, the presence of Uprise RI and other reporting venues went a long way towards the safety of the protesters, who took their protest hours past curfew without serious incident, vandalism or violence.

Here are links to the original live videos on Facebook:

And here are those videos uploaded to YouTube: