Plymouth residents gather for peaceful Black Lives Matter protest

PLYMOUTH, Ind.— Plymouth protesters gathered outside of the courthouse this afternoon for 6 hours to protest solidarity and support to the Black Lives Matter movement.

This peaceful protest comes after the death of George Floyd, who died when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.

Plymouth’s Black Lives Matter organizer, Dylan Connor said that this protest was meant to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and to show their support to their community.

He said that whether the city is big or small, that it’s important to come out and have your voices heard, and that he hopes that even small cities like Plymouth can make a difference.

“We love living here because we have our first amendment rights to protest and we’ve seen time and time again these last few weeks that those have been at risk so we want to stand up for black lives and we want to stand up against police brutality—and we want to stand for our right to protest,” Connor said.

“Black lives matter is not an exclusive phrase, it’s not an exclusive movement, you know Plymouth has an overwhelmingly white population and we as a fairly white community want to stand with black lives matter.”

One of the demonstrators said that she hopes that protests like these will result in major changes nationally.

Arleen Peterson was at the protest from the very beginning and said that although that past can’t be changed, that we can still acknowledge it.

She said that in order for things to get better and for changes to be made in our country that people need to be open to hear the truth on what’s happening and to have those difficult discussions.

 “Change happens…it can happen, and like my sign says it can happen right there if you can change your heart, you can change your house, you can change your workplace, you can change your church, and then you begin to be the change in this world. That’s what it’s about, it’s just about change,” Peterson said. “People need to know the voices of hate, the voices of hatred, the chaos—that’s not the voices of our community.”

Peterson said that she’s not the only one that wants change to happen, but that everyone who joined the rally this afternoon also wants it too.