Hundreds attend Black Lives Matter event in New Albany, affirming every citizen’s right to freedom from fear

New Albany, MS – A mixed-race crowd estimated at about 400 people gathered Sunday afternoon in downtown New Albany, in what its organizers called “a peaceful march for solidarity.”

Here’s one way to begin fixing our problem. Photo courtesy Cathy Garrett

It was just that.They gathered first at the farmer’s market site on the left bank of the Tallahatchie River, just south of the downtown bridge.

The crowd by the river probably swelled to 400 or more at one point as they listened to speakers and musicians. A stranger might have mistaken it for a Fourth of July gathering in the American South, but it wasn’t that. While it had elements similar to a patriotic event, it was more than that.

NEMiss.news Cullens and Garrett in march

New Albany businessman, Mark Garrett (gesturing), and Antonio Cullens, former NAHS football hero, now a manufacturing manager, in step and in conversation at New Albany’s BLM March, June 7, 2020.

It was an affirmation, an indignant declaration of that most American of all words, the word that appears on every one of our coins: “LIBERTY!”

Liberty. Freedom. The right of every American to freedom from fear that we will be injured by agents of our own government; freedom from the threat of a gestapo-like thug dragging us from our beds at 3 a.m. – or kneeling on our heads, pressing our skulls into the asphalt until we die.

Twelve days ago, 900 miles away in Minneapolis, Minnesota, George Floyd was denied those freedoms by a sworn police officer, a paid agent of the Minneapolis city government. George Floyd may have been a troubled man, but he was a man, an American Man.

And he had an absolute right to be treated as a man.

Sam Mosley, songwriter, band leader and American patriot is shown at left wearing his U.S. Army combat veteran cap.

After gathering at the river, a few hundred New Albany people marched to the Union County Courthouse to affirm what was denied to George Floyd.

Some chanted his name, “George Floyd. George Floyd. George Floyd. Some carried signs exercising their absolute first amendment freedom to say whatever they felt like saying about things.

Everybody behaved. There was some anger, but no displays of rage, no laws broken.

Americans enjoying Liberty and affirming their demand that it be respected by every employ of their government, whether President of the United States or a patrolman on the beat.