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charlottesville high school’s black student union’s #racialjusticewalkout is happening now.
student leaders are now reading their demands to the crowd here in mcintire park. @ZyahnaB: “we need more black teachers” CHS currently has only one AP course taught by a black teacher.
@ZyahnaB: “no one should be able to opt out of black history!” buford elementary had no in-school celebration of black history month this year. they also demand equal course weight for a black history class at CHS.
i’m no crowd size estimate expert, but it looks like maybe 200 people marching through mcintire park with CHS’s black student union leading the way for the #racialjusticewalkout
despite having lived in charlottesville for over a decade, i’ve never walked through mcintire park before. my only familiarity with it has been from poring over footage of nazis gathering here a year and a half ago. today the park echoes with calls of “black lives matter.”
students are lining the 250 bypass, eliciting cheers & honks from passing cars. across the street at the former mcintire high school, a building funded by the same man who gave this city its confederate statues, the parking lot is full of cops cars.
student organizers said that those who had a parent note to walk out will be allowed to return to class (and, i assume, be allowed to participate in after school activities, which was an issue with the climate strike walkout)
it’s worth noting that the crowd size remained steady for the hour and a half action. these kids didn’t walk out to cut class. they walked out for racial justice.
just a quick note to the undercover cops who monitored this action: a couple of white guys sitting in an suv scoping out this black student protest looks incredibly scary. identify yourselves next time.
not that cops are any comfort or friend to black activists, but this action was sparked by recent threats of a lone wolf white supremacist shooter. the community was on high alert & those undercovers looked exactly like the kind of threat we were scanning for.
