The Swannanoa Valley shows up to say Black Lives Matter

Vigil held in Black Mountain Town Square

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
June 19, 2020

Support for the Black Lives Matter movement was on display in the center of Black Mountain on June 19, when hundreds of area residents gathered in Town Square to hold a peaceful vigil.

Organized by local community members, including Shirlee Lytle, the gathering featured several guest speakers and included an 8:46 moment of silence in memory of George Floyd.

Lytle welcomed the crowd and introduced speeches by Melody Gardner, Monroe Gilmour, Black Mountain Police Chief Shawn Freeman and Herbert Grant.

Gardner recognized Juneteenth as a “special day in American history,” before recounting the struggles for freedom and equality that Black people have experienced in the country. She detailed a timeline that began with slavery, included oppressive Jim Crow laws, redlining that enabled segregation in communities and a judicial system that issued harsher sentences to Black offenders than those enforced on their white counterparts.

“Have we come a long way since June 19, 1865, when all slaves in the South learned they were free? Yes, we have. African Americans can vote, own land, own homes in neighborhoods where the property values steadily grow over the years, own a business, go to college, work in leadership roles, serve in government, marry interracially, etcetera,” she said. “We’ve come a long way for sure. However, with the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and the encounter in the park between a Black man and white woman, in New York City, we all know there is something wrong systemically.”

Gilmour opened by leading chants of "Black Lives Matter,” a refrain that has become popular once again in the weeks since the death of Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police officers who were terminated after the incident.

“Why, on the 155th Juneteenth holiday, are we having to say it again?” he asked.

Racism is not exclusive to the big city, Gilmour cautioned, “it’s right here in our mountains.”

He encouraged people in the region and across the country to speak up for equality.

Freeman told the crowd that the show of support for the message of unity warmed his heart. He thanked the organizers and attendees for allowing him to speak.

“Let me first say that me and my officers have seen the (Floyd) video,” he said. “We’ve never been more appalled, disgusted or enraged than by the actions of those ex-police officers in Minneapolis. Their actions contradict everything that we stood up for in our oaths of office for our position, and our code of ethics as law enforcement officers in this state.”

He derided the act captured by the video as having “dismantled years of progress in building relationships within our community.”

Freeman assured the crowd that the Black Mountain Police Department is working to prevent biased policing practices.

“My heart is touched by the number of people who showed up to this event,” he said. “We are united for change and fairness for everyone, regardless of age, race or ethnicity.”

The final speaker of the evening was Grant, pastor of Hopkins Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church and graduate of Owen High School. Grant delivered a powerful message about human nature and the need to find common ground.

“The most important basis for successful living is the art of knowing how to get along with people, and how to adjust ourselves, day-to-day, to the different temperaments we experience with our relatives and friends,” he said. “How to see the good in them and in their actions, and how to ignore the evil they sometimes do to us.”

Unity between all people is more important now than at any other time in human history, Grant continued. He encouraged everyone, regardless of background, to look for the good in others and care for their well-being.

“We’ve got to love one another,” he said. “Because, regardless of whether I’m a police officer, a ditch digger, a minister, a clerk at a store, whatever my affiliation is, if I love you, I will not put my knee on your neck and cause you not to breathe…

“When we love one another, when we walk with the Lord, we will do that which is right,” Grant said. “That’s why you’re here today. Because, there is something that has been born inside of you and it has nothing to do with where you come from or who your parents are or anything. It’s the one who created you that has caused you to do the right thing.”

The vigil concluded with an 8:46 moment of silence for Floyd, prompting most of the crowd to kneel throughout. Attendees were encouraged to stand on the side of the roads in downtown Black Mountain to display the signs they created to support the Black Lives Matter movement.

A photo gallery from the vigil can be found below at the top of the page.