From the Editor: Varied voices heard at community peace rally

We’ve seen isolated protests in the Tri-City area in sympathy with two weeks of demonstrations against police brutality after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Nothing local will be more significant than the community rally for peace that was held Saturday in Lawrence Park, for a couple of reasons.
These protests across the country are nothing new, unfortunately, because the events that touched them off are nothing new. If you don’t want to go back as far as Selma, there’s the Rodney King case in 1991 in Los Angeles. More recently, we’ve seen protests over the deaths of Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburbs and Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
But nothing we’ve seen matches the spread of the protests in response to Floyd’s death.
At Lawrence Park, there wasn’t much that could be described as police-bashing. The Morgan City Police Department set up a tent at the event. And no one showed up to heckle.
The general mood was that enough is enough.
The people who showed up for the 10 a.m. event — at least 50, but more walked up as the event was going on — heard voices you might expect to hear, among them parish NAACP leader Reginald Weary and Morgan City Ron Bias, an African American clergyman.
Weary noted that the crowd at Lawrence Park wasn’t limited to blacks.
“Look around,” Weary said. “It’s not just black people that feel the misery we have felt. It’s white people as well. It’s people of all ethnicities.”
“The thing we have to do now is get past the fear,” Bias said. “We have to sit down at the table of brotherhood and work these things out.”
But the voices from the gazebo weren’t only African American.
Morgan City Mayor Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi pledged his final sixth months in office to reviewing polices and policing in the city.
Dwayne Dupuy of Berwick got some applause after he said that he had disagreed with the take-a-knee protests in the National Football League against police brutality because he didn’t understand them.
“Now,” Dupuy said, “after seeing all this stuff that’s still happening, man, and nobody’s willing to make a change, it’s time to do better, man.”
That’s one thing that makes the response to Floyd’s death different than the protests that have come before. The determination to do better has spread beyond the black community.
The other aspect that made Saturday’s event different was that it was put together by a teenager.
Wesley Williams, 16, came up with the idea and a plan. He approached the mayor and police chief, who got on board.
We’ve had reason to be proud of St. Mary’s young people before, of course. We’ve written about the annual New Generation event in which high school students are challenged to come up with plans for civic improvements.
The results have included a dog park in Morgan City, intergenerational mixers for kids and seniors in Berwick and park improvements in Centerville.
A group of college-age men appeared Saturday to talk about their plans for mentoring local young people.
Weary and Bias both said they’ve wondered whether young people understand the importance of standing up for civil rights and racial justice. The times we’re living in may change their minds.
“They’re pulling up their pants and sharpening their minds …,” Bias said. “I don’t think they’re going to put up with the mess that I did and my daddy did and my grandpa did and for that matter your daddy and your grandpa.”
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review.