By Louise Dupont
Hundreds marched in protest of police brutality on Thursday on the mainline. Protesters started at Wayne train station and marched along Route 30, many chanting or holding signs. Volunteers set up stations with refreshments along the approximately 5.5-mile route. The protest was organized with the cooperation of the Tredyffrin, Easttown, and Radnor police forces, who blocked off half the lanes on Route 30. Many people who were unable to march also stood on the sides of the road to cheer on the protest, while others drove by and honked.
The march was organized by current and former members of Conestoga’s African American Student Union. More images and information for future protests can be found on their Instagram account, @mainlineforblacklives. News of the protest was spread primarily through social media, including through the distribution of the flyer included here.
After the march, protesters gathered in the Paoli train station’s parking lot in front of the organizers of the march, who held a Black Lives Matter banner. While everyone settled down, they played songs that related to the experience of black people in the United States, including songs by Kendrick Lamar. Roi Lush, a Conestoga alumni and Valley Forge Middle School teacher turned battle rapper, then performed a freestyle about his experiences with racism. His rap as well as images from the protest are available on his Instagram, @roilush.
Many of the organizers of the march as well as other members of the community also gave speeches. Many of the African American Student Union members touched on their experiences with racism on the mainline and in Conestoga High School. A consistent theme between all the speeches was that it was not enough for anyone to just attend the march, but that everyone should keep working towards equality after the event, including through donating and signing petitions. Several of the speakers also implored nonblack allies in the crowd to speak up whenever they saw racism and emphasized that silence is violence and complicity, as many of the people in the crowd had written on signs. They also called out people who they saw turning protests into a trend without being anti-racist in real life.
One particularly touching moment came when one of the organizers read out the many names of unarmed black people killed in the United States in recent years and asked the crowd to repeat them back. A black father also spoke out about how he had taught his eleven-year-old daughter already how she would need to react to survive on the mainline, and then his daughter spoke about how she would one day like to make a change. The protest ended with everyone kneeling for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time that the police officer who murdered George Floyd kneeled on his neck.
Future protests in the area will be posted on the @mainlineforblacklives Instagram. If you wish to participate in the cause, please donate to charities such as bail funds, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, or the Communities United Against Police Brutality fund. Please also sign petitions to bring justice to black Americans recently killed by police. And most importantly, as the organizers of the march emphasized, stand against racism and prejudice when you see it in everyday life, and continue to educate yourself on what black people face in America every day.
