Four Nashville, TN teenagers organized and led a 10,000-person protest against racism and police brutality Thursday. Nya Collins, Zee Thomas, Jade Fuller, and Emma Rose Smith are the young women who led the charge for the Southern city. According to The Tennessean, this was the largest protest in recent history.
“We all met on Twitter,” Collins said. “And that’s how easy it is to do something like this.”
The young women began FaceTiming one another and decided to form the coalition Girls For Change after they initially met via social media. The young coalition is backed by Black Lives Matter Nashville.
The protest Thursday, included people holding signs that said, “Black lives matter,” “Justice for George Floyd,” and “End white silence.” Local teens and community organizers read poems and gave emotional speeches.
An extremely emotional moment was when everyone at the march laid down in the street to remember the death of Floyd.
“As teens, we are tired of waking up and seeing another innocent person being slain in broad daylight,” Thomas said in a speech.
Adding, “As teens, we are desensitized to death because we see videos of black people being killed in broad daylight circulating on social media platforms. As teens, we feel like we cannot make a difference in this world, but we must.”
The teenagers asked attendees to ignore disturbances and to not provoke police, The Tennessean reported that local police were calm for the most part and didn’t incite any violence. However, in typical fashion, the police attempted to break up the march at one point by falsely claiming there was a tornado warning for the area.
“It’s your brothers and sisters. It’s people in your community, people you know who are feeling oppressed. Their moms and dads are getting killed because of their skin color, because people are afraid of them,” Emma Rose Smith told WSMV. “We can all come together as a community to stop what’s happening and that the racism ends in our country.”
Salute to these young women and every woman across the country using their voice for change. #WeGotUs
