MEMPHIS —Black lives matter.
It's not a threat. It's a declaration. Like "I am a man" and "We the people."
It was a declaration made loudly, boldly and clearly Sunday by hundreds of protesters who blocked a Memphis bridge and woke a city.
It was a powerful demonstration of the racial and cultural divide we can't seem to cross but somehow must.
It moved like a wave from a few dozen people at the National Civil Rights Museum, to more than a thousand at the I-40 bridge over the Mississippi, and eventually back to Beale Street.
"Just because we're saying black lives matter does not mean that nobody else matters," Rev. Dr. Andre Johnson said on Facebook Live Sunday evening as he walked from the bridge back to Beale.
"But it means we have some issues that need to be dealt with."
Social media images from protests against police brutality across the U.S.
It was a peaceful demonstration.
No one was arrested or hurt. Older people were calming younger ones. Younger people were inspiring older ones. Protesters were hugging police officers. Bystanders were passing out bottles of water and other signs of support.
"We didn't want to tear up the city," said DeVonte Hill, a minister and Black Lives Matter leader who organized and led the demonstration.
"This is not an attack on police officers. This is not an attack on the Caucasian culture or any culture. This is an attack on the spirit of oppression that the African-American culture has faced for years."
It was a poised demonstration.
Protesters defiantly blocked interstate traffic on the bridge for hours, but made way for a car taking a child to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
"The narratives of peaceful protests pivot too heavily on behavior of police and not enough on the passion and poise of protesters," said Rev. Earle Fisher, who worked Sunday evening to encourage protesters to let their voices be heard and police to let them.
"Yesterday was the best interview any interim police director could have had, and Director Rallings showed leadership, but he was led by the protesters."
It was prayerful demonstration.
In fact, Rallings, who met protesters on the bridge in full uniform and a Kevlar vest, ended up marching and praying with them in civilian clothes.
"I came from church," Rallings said Sunday evening on Beale.
"I took off my body armor. I have the armor of God. I'm not scared of my people. My mother and father taught me to love. I'm going to let that love come and out, and that love is going to make some changes."
Rallings, who is an African-American police officer, understands that "black lives matter" isn't a threat.
It's an angry, anguished response to a threat that didn't end at Gettysburg or Appomattox, or in Montgomery or Selma, or even in Chicago in 2008.
The demonstration came a few days after the seemingly unwarranted killings of two more black men by white police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota.
It came 51 weeks to the day after an unarmed black teenager named Darrius Stewart was shot and killed by an armed white police officer in Memphis.
It came after countless black men and boys have been killed by law enforcement officers across the country with legal impunity.
In the past five years, Memphis police officers have been involved in the fatal shootings of 26 men. None of the officers involved have been indicted.
"We're 0 for 26," Johnson said as he walked with fellow demonstrators Sunday evening down Danny Thomas Boulevard, bearing witness. "We don't understand why certain people can't get indicted or convicted."
Black lives matter isn't just a statement. It's a question.
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Do black lives matter as much as other lives?
If so, then do something about the racial biases so embedded in our DNA we aren't able or willing to acknowledge them.
Do something about the racism that is built into our system and society — and upon which our system and society was built.
Do something about the fact that black men in this country are arrested and incarcerated, and shot and killed by police and others, at wildly disproportionate rates.
Listen to what the Black Lives Matter protesters are saying, not just how they're saying it.
"Maybe instead of lamenting the fact that Black Lives Matter protesters are out in the street and shutting down traffic," Johnson said Sunday evening as he walked from the bridge, "maybe you should ask yourselves why ... instead of trying to blame Black Lives Matter for trying to bring attention to a problem that nobody really seems to want to try to solve."
The demonstrators didn't block the bridge because they don't care about the law.
They blocked it because they still do.
FollowDavid Waters on Twitter:@DavidWatersCA
