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The Badger Herald

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The Badger Herald

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Black Lives Matter protests continue peacefully Saturday night at Capitol

Protestors fight for community control rather than policing
Black+Lives+Matter+protests+continue+peacefully+Saturday+night+at+Capitol
Mary Magnuson

Black Lives Matter protests continued Saturday night with a youth-led protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Since Friday, the group of previously unaffiliated youth activists organizing the protests officially created an organization, which they’re calling Impact Demand. Impact Demand will help organize future protests and work with other community organizations to create policy change in Madison, Co-Creator and University of Wisconsin rising sophomore Ayomi Obuseh said.

Part of the group is the over 1,600 people in the Madison For Black Lives Facebook group , which organizers have used to let people know where and what times they’re protesting at, Impact Demand member De’Asia Donaldson said.

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https://badgerherald.com/news/2020/06/06/fridays-black-lives-matter-protest-a-celebration-of-breonna-taylors-life-blm-movement/

“We have volunteers through Urban Triage and Freedom Inc., and they come here to support us,” Donaldson said. “And then we also have medics that choose to support us, and et cetera. And after that we have volunteers, as in protestors, that choose to drop off sodas, so it’s everybody. That’s basically what we do here … the more, the merrier.”

Freedom Inc. and Urban Triage are local community organizations dedicated to uplifting minority voices, both of which have a hand in Impact Demand, Donaldson said.

Impact Demand is primarily youth-led, Obuseh said, and she stressed the importance of youth voices helping make change in Madison.

While protestors didn’t march at all, several speakers shared their stories in front of everyone at the steps of the Capitol.

“Tonight is a youth-led movement, because the youth are the reason we’re gonna get shit done,” Obuseh said. “We need to stay mad, stay educated, bring people out here because we are going to move Madison in a better direction.”

Throughout the night, Obuseh and Donaldson emphasized one of the main reasons they’re out protesting — to defund police departments and install systems of community control. Through community control, professionals with more training, like social workers, handle delicate situations cops might otherwise handle. Resources that might otherwise go to the police department go to community services and programs that support minorities and those in poverty, which reduce instances of crime.

https://badgerherald.com/news/2020/06/05/protest-at-capitol-continues-thursday-night-march-heads-down-e-washington/

Organizers asked protestors when in their life they’ve ever needed the help of a policeman, and they also asked protestors whether they fear for the livelihoods of their Black peers at the hands of cops — a majority of people raised their hands to the second point.

Organizers said everyone attending should come out every night to fight for these causes, if they can. They said they’re not just out to make noise, but to make change.

Impact Demand is not holding any protests Sunday, instead it’s a day to organize and plan, Obuseh said, but every day next week, starting Monday, they’ll come back out to protest.

“This is just the beginning, y’all,” one protestor said up at the mic. “We’re gonna fight. We’re not settling for less this time. As I look at this crowd, it’s not as big [as Friday’s crowd], but I can see the genuineness in this crowd right now.”

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