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Protests Are Planned For Every Night This Week In New Orleans

Several dozen people gathered to protest the killing of George Floyd and other black Americans at Claiborne and Esplanade avenues in New Orleans. May 29, 2020.
Ashley Dean
/
WWNO
Several dozen people gathered to protest the killing of George Floyd and other black Americans at Claiborne and Esplanade avenues in New Orleans. May 29, 2020.

Activist group Take 'Em Down NOLA has organized a week's worth of protests in New Orleans in response to the killing of George Floyd, as well as the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Modesto Reyes, Tony McDade and others killed by police.

The 7 Days of Action, as organizers are calling it, began at noon Saturday with a march from Duncan Plaza to New Orleans Police Department headquarters. On Sunday, they held a workers group forum.

The protests will pick up again at 6 p.m. Monday at Duncan Plaza. The plan is to return at the same time and place each night through Thursday. On Friday, the protest is planned for 6 p.m. at Jackson Square.

Here's the full statement from organizers on takeemdownnola.org:

After all the protests against racist police terror there has been no justice, but instead an escalation of racist violence encouraged by the white supremacist capitalist system against the Black community. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Modesto Reyes, Tony McDade and so many more unknown, gunned down for breathing while Black. The intensification of racism can be also seen by the number of Black lives lost to Covid 19 and the forcing of Black, brown and low paid workers back to work despite the threat to their lives. In Minneapolis the Black community has said enough! They have risen up against the state machine, not be ignored any longer. To rebel is justified, and these heroic freedom fighters are now combating the police and national guard. Trump is calling for the rebels to be shot, and many have been arrested. The protests and police station stormings are also being joined by many white youth. We have to stand strongly by the uprising and raise the call “To Rebel Is Justified.” We call for the immediate arrest and conviction of all 4 killer cops, the immediate removal of the police and national guard in the Black community and to dismiss all charges against the freedom fighters. Join us to show your solidarity with Minneapolis!

Saturday's protest remained peaceful, Bryn Stole reported for NOLA.com. The only police presence was a motorcycle escort clearing the streets ahead of the march, and protesters made efforts (though not always successful) to distance themselves from each other.

On Saturday night protesters briefly blocked portions of the Westbank Expressway in Marrero to protest the death of Modesto Reyes, who was shot tand killed by Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies on Wednesday night, NOLA.com reported. The action was not part of Take 'Em Down NOLA's effort, though the group has made a statement in solidarity.

And on Friday afternoon, several dozen people stood gathered at Claiborne and Esplanade avenues to protest the killing of George Floyd and other black Americans. That protest was organized by the group Southern Solidarity.

Copyright 2021 WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio. To see more, visit .

Ashley Dean is the digital news editor for New Orleans Public Radio. Before coming to New Orleans, she was the editor of Denverite, a digital news startup now under the Colorado Public Radio umbrella. Prior to that she was a copy editor and features writer at the Denver Post, and before that, a music reporter for the Colorado Daily. She graduated from Columbia University with a master's degree in journalism and from Northeastern University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.