On August 5th, around two hundred people gathered downtown to mourn the loss of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman killed by police in Springfield, Illinois. Monday’s vigil was organized by a coalition of eight groups, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), Durham Beyond Policing, and Mothers for Ceasefire.
Summoned largely by social media, people began to fill CCB Plaza at 7:30 p.m. Visitors at the Marriott could be seen looking down from high windows into the crowded square. In the trees by East Chapel Hill Street fluttered a banner that said, “Black Lives Matter – Fight Back for All Victims of Police and State Terror”.
Massey was killed on July 6th when a Sangamon County deputy “shot her in the face in an exchange over a pot of water and advised his partner against rendering medical aid” [1]. Her last words were, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus”.
The vigil began around 7:50 p.m. As daylight turned to darkness, the crowd heard speeches from Victor Urquiza from PSL, Shanise Hamilton from Durham Beyond Policing, Reverend Allen Jones of Change Path Ministries, Charla Rios from Mothers for Ceasefire, Kelia Evans from PSL, Kalia Fitzgerald from the Green Party, Marcus Summers with PSL, human rights activist Desmera Gatewood, and the Durham Ceasefire Choir.
Many speakers mentioned the disconnect between Kamala Harris’ presidential run and the continued police killings of Black women. To paraphrase one speech, “Our lives are not just valuable when we’re running for president, or when we have college degrees, or when we win gold medals, our lives are valuable because we’re human beings.”
Marcus Summers cited a list of police killings to show a pattern of reckless disregard toward Black communities. He said, “We must not forget Senior Airman Roger Fortson, Breonna Taylor, Botham Jean, and countless others who have been shot by overzealous police officers who either forced their way in or shot into houses. In two of these cases, the police were even at the wrong place. One of them wasn’t even on the job at the time.”
Desmera Gatewood, another speaker, called on the Durham community to look for ways to safeguard itself against the police. In her speech, Gatewood said, “We’re not here because we want to beg again for somebody to spare us. Instead, we want to make a demand for people to protect Black women.”
Gatewood and many other speakers linked the movements for Black Lives Matter and Palestinian liberation. She talked about going to the West Bank and meeting Ahed Tamimi, an anti-occupation activist whose 15-year-old cousin Mohammed Tamimi was shot in the head by the IDF for throwing stones. When Gatewood asked the audience to link their concern for Black people killed by police to victims of U.S.-backed wars, several Arab people in the audience openly wept.
Shanise Hamilton, an activist with Durham Beyond Policing, gave two speeches at Monday's vigil. In her second speech, Hamilton walked the crowd through Durham’s adoption of the Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Team (HEART) program in 2022.
After George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Durham Beyond Policing and city leaders cooperated to establish HEART, a program that uses unarmed specialists to respond to certain kinds of 9-1-1 calls, such as those related to mental health and homelessness. As of 2024, HEART services are available 12 hours a day and the program's funding has steadily risen [2].
The establishment of HEART-like programs in Durham and other U.S. cities show that the Black Lives Matter movement has achieved partial victories. Although slogans like “Defund the Police” were vilified in mainstream opinion, many groups which rallied around that call have moved in productive directions. If efforts like HEART are combined with economic redistribution, it’s easy to imagine a much-reduced role for law enforcement in the future.
Around 9 p.m., when it was fully dark, organizers distributed hundreds of candles. The glow of neon lights from the Unscripted hotel was joined by countless tiny flames that illuminated keffiyehs and slogans on shirts like “Black Lives Matter”, “Mothers for a Ceasefire”, “Say Her Name” written in Sharpie, “We Have Nothing to Lose but Our Chains”, and “Rest in Power”.
The police killing of Sonya Massey on July 6th is a new entry in the long annals of white supremacy. Racism against Black people has been a pronounced, stable feature of U.S. history. Its only rival as a defining theme is 400 years of near-constant war.
There has been mixed progress against white supremacy in recent decades. Since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the more privileged sector of Black life has accumulated more rights than at any point in history. However, the neoliberal assault since the 1980s has caused stagnation or decline for most of the U.S. population, with a distinctly harsh effect on Black communities. The worst crime of white supremacy in this period has been mass incarceration, a kind of race-class war aimed disproportionately against Black men.
During the August 5th vigil, the Durham Ceasefire Choir contributed the only musical act. The choir taught the crowd a brief song called “Carry This All” and the people in CCB Plaza sang it together four or five times.
“You do not carry this all alone,
No, you do not carry this all alone,
This is way too big for you,
To carry this on your own,
So, you do not carry this all alone.”
Work Cited
Petri, Alexandra. “Deputy Fatally Shot Woman Over Pot of Hot Water, Records Show.” New York Times, 17 July 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/us/sonya-massey-illinois-deputy-charged.html.
Moore, Mary Helen. “On The Call With Unarmed 911 Responders During NC’s Life-threatening Heat Wave.” News and Observer, 10 July 2024, www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article289499876.html.
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