Racial justice advocates rally in Annville condemning mass shootings
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As residents drove through the town square of Annville late Wednesday afternoon, they were surrounded from all sides by signs that read “Enough is enough” and “We Unite to Mourn the Dead.”
“It was really important to me to visibly show the community that diversity, inclusion, and standing against hate matters, and it matters here,” said Elizabeth Sterner, a Lebanon Valley College chemistry professor.
Standing near Route 422 with a sign titled “Black Lives are Brilliant,” Sterner said Black Lives Matter protestors want to encourage people to to dig a little deeper when it comes to issues like racial injustice.
“It’s moved away from just focusing on issues of policing and really looking at our society more broadly,” she said.
That why more than 20 people from the Lebanon County Branch of the NAACP and the Annville Town Square Protesters for Racial Justice held a joint protest and rally Wednesday to remember the victims of a recent shooting in Buffalo, New York.
Organizers also expressed their sympathies to the residents of Uvalde, Texas. On Tuesday, nineteen children and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Organizers want to “keep people from being numb” to the injustices and devastation that is happening in the world, said Tony Fields, president of the NAACP chapter.
“Sometimes you hear stuff all the time and you just go numb to it cause it hurts so much,” he said. “But we want to keep it before everyone…we want people to know that here in Lebanon County, in the little town of Annville, we are going to make a difference. We are here to make a difference.”
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On May 14, 10 people were killed and three were injured in a shooting at a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York. Officials said that the alleged 18-year-old white shooter was inspired by a theory that white people are being replaced by Black and Latinos.
Wednesday also marked the two-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, which sparked the Annville Town Square Protesters for Racial Justice to have weekly protests at the intersection. Floyd, a Black man, died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
“Things haven’t changed much since George Floyd’s murder two years ago today, so we are continuing to try and draw attention to this ongoing and pernicious problem of racism in American society,” said Michael Schroeder, The Lebanon NAACP secretary and chief organizer of the Town Square Protestors. “We’re struggling for reform in the criminal justice system, reform in law enforcement, an end to white supremacy and a cultural reckoning with the reality of racism in American society.”
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