Unity And Support Are The Message For Local Black Lives Matter Vigils

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Last week, approximately 150 people gathered at Masconomo Park in Manchester for a vigil to honor George Floyd and show support for the Black Lives Matter movement that is sweeping across the country.  And this week, three more such events are taking place locally, including one formalized Monday by the Board of Selectmen after MERHS freshman Bella Wright and senior Elene Karlberg presented their idea for a peaceful downtown protest vigil set for Friday, June 12. 

The event will start at Masconomo Park at 4 p.m., and feature speakers and a collective 8-minute and 46-second moment of silence in honor of George Floyd, after which the event will proceed with a march up Beach, Union, and Central Streets to Town Hall where it will end.  Wright and Karlberg are asking participants to wear a mask and socially distance.

The poster advertising Friday’s vigil shows an illustration of four hands ranging in skin color all making a “peace sign,” to indicate the issue of systemic racial violence is all inclusive.  Wright said after attending four BLM demonstrations locally, including last week’s protest in Gloucester, she was inspired to act. 

Race-based violence, she said, is “about everybody”—all ages, all races, all regions.  Showing solidarity and support works, said Wright.  It shows that, “together, we have a lot of power.”

Friday’s event was approved unanimously by the BOS.

Manchester Police Chief Todd Fitzgerald was part of Monday’s meeting, and said his department is there to support Wright and Karlgerg’s vigil to ensure the event runs as planned.  If the street needs to be cordoned off to help the group’s passage to Town Hall, he said, the department is there to help.  Officers won’t get in the way, but they’ll be within reach to offer support and help.  “Whatever they need, we’re here,” Fitzgerald said.

Then, on Sunday, which happens to also be Flag Day, another BLM demonstration will take place at Masconomo Park.   The informal event was organized by Manchester’s Chloe Schwartz, who has been actively supporting BLM locally both online and in person.  In particular, Schwartz has spoken out online against the spate of BLM signs—most of them hand-made signs by local young people and posted around Manchester—that have been vandalized and destroyed.  The destruction seemed to follow the idea that political signs should not be on public property.  But the town issues guidance that confirmed it hadn’t been removing the signs, nor would it and it laid out a process by which anyone wanting to post signs downtown could do so by alerting Town Administrator Greg Federspiel.  The upshot?  The signs are a matter of expression that the town will accommodate.

The heated rhetoric online about the destruction of these hand-made signs aside, Schwartz said, the Flag Day vigil is designed to be optimistic and unifying, as well as productive. 

“It’s not to incite anger but to start a dialog,” she said.  “The overall goal is to come down and hopefully start a conversation.”

Schwartz, who graduated from ME Regional High School and is now completing a medical degree at Boston University, is hoping that conversation will lead to practical, real steps that towns like Manchester and Essex can take to do their part to drive inclusion, such as looking to books and films included in school curriculum.  But having a meaningful conversation is the first step.

Other vigils included one that took place Wednesday (after The Cricket’s deadline) in downtown Essex on the Causeway and, this coming Monday, another small vigil is planned for Manchester across the street from the Post Office on Beach Street.

blm, manchester, board of selectmen, me regional high school, todd fitzgerald, greg federspiel, chloe schwartz, elene karlberg, manchester police, flag day, george floyd, bella wright, town hall, town administrator