Protests sweep the world

Submitted by AWL on 10 June, 2020 - 3:36 Author: Fraser Andrews
Milton Keynes protest

Black Lives Matter protests have swept the world, and not just the big cities. Fraser Andrews reports on the 6 June protest in a relatively small town, Milton Keynes.

This was by far and away the most the most significant protest I’ve ever seen here in Milton Keynes.

I estimate up to 1,000 gathered — in a city of 250,000. That’s five times the size of any anti-austerity demonstration here at the peak of that movement. Lots of home-made signs. A mostly young crowd, mostly black and other people of colour. Little organised socialist presence.

As the “official” demonstration ended not long after 12.30, some people with a megaphone asked the crowd: “Do we want to march?”

Yes! The crowd made its way out of the station square and up the main boulevard, gradually gaining a more confident, militant form.

Initially everyone politely sidled up the footpaths, but then we moved into the centre of the road, bringing traffic to a standstill.

We marched to the city council building, and then around town to the police station. Protesters excitedly demand the police “take the knee” — which some did, to a great sense of victory among the crowd.

Generally it was peaceful. The exhilaration on some of these young people’s faces as they got a sense of their collective power was inspiring.

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