By Alyssa Allemand
Residents of central Illinois marched in support of the Black Lives Matter movement on June 5 in Gibson City, Ill.
Three Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley (GCMS) High School graduates organized the protest: Bailey Salyards (2018 graduate), Audrey Maxey (2018 graduate) and Caleb Rogers (2019 graduate). Salyards and Maxey are both students at Illinois State University and Rogers works in Gibson City.
The organizers said their focus was to promote equality, peace and unity. They wanted “to make people aware that stuff is happening, and while it might not be happening right here in front of your face, it is happening very close to us and all around the world,” Maxey said.
“We definitely understand people of color right now that are saying, ‘It’s not my job to educate,'” she said.
“But we as people of color that are coming from a teeny tiny town, it’s like, who else is going to do it? We feel the biggest amount of pressure to be like, you know what, it’s our time to say something. We’re here to do nothing more than to educate people and to open people’s eyes to things they may have never thought of.”
Protest events
Protesters gathered in the parking lot next to City Hall at 5 p.m. and marched down Church St. to the North Park Pavilion, escorted by two state police vehicles and Gibson City Police Department (GCPD) Chief Adam Rosendahl, said GCPD Captain Kaleb Kraft.
“This allowed for our officers to continue to provide public safety for the rest of the City while the event was taking place,” Kraft said. “We had extra units in the downtown and the North Park areas to make sure everything went smoothly. Paxton Police and the Ford County Sheriff’s Office provided a few units each to have adequate staffing. Command staff and Officers were present from each department.”
Maxey said someone estimated about 160 protest attendees.
Before marching, there was a moment of silence in memory of the lives lost this year due to police brutality. Then two pastors, Nick Carlson of New Beginnings Christian Fellowship and Ray Lantz of First Presbyterian Church, each offered prayer and encouraging words.
Organizers said they asked for support from local churches because they know Gibson City is a religious community.
“The basis of this is that it is a Black Lives Matter movement,” Maxey said, “but we know the demographic we’re speaking to and we know that you have to open up a dialogue for people first to begin thinking about things before you can really start changing people’s minds.”
While marching, protesters chanted, “Say her name: Breanna Taylor,” “Say his name: George Floyd,” “No justice, no peace, prosecute the police,” “Black lives matter,” “I can’t breathe” and “Whose streets? Our streets.”
Once arriving at the pavilion, Maxey and Rogers introduced speakers.
Ryalnd Holt, a 2019 graduate from GCMS, and Desiree Johnson thanked protesters for coming out.
Maxey and Rogers read anonymous messages from people who did not want to speak publicly. One message said, “We must work for solutions so that there become fewer reasons for rioting and looting,” referencing events from other Black Lives Matter protests around the U.S.
Another focused on racial slurs and comments made in the community, saying, “My heart breaks when my daughter cries when she’s made fun of because her skin is darker than the rest of her class.” The message advocated for education and peace.
Rogers read a statement from Salyards, who could not be at the protest because of health concerns amidst COVID-19. “It’s about listening and learning, then helping to spread their (minorities’) message,” she wrote. “This is what being an ally means, and I’m happy that so many people are using their privilege to help others be heard.”
Estelle Keigher, a 2018 GCMS graduate who’s now a student at Eastern Illinois University (EIU), asked protesters to kneel while she read her speech. She said that though she “cannot understand what it is like to be racially discriminated against,” she speaks as someone who “demands to see change in a systematically racist world.”
Keigher told a story about a friend of hers from EIU, a Black man on the school’s swimming team. She said he was racially profiled by police last February while the team was stopped taking a photo on the way back to campus after a meet. One of the officers, said Keigher, held a gun to her friend’s head and had his knee on his back, similar to the position George Floyd was in when he died at the hands of police in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.
“And if you think that kneeling this long is uncomfortable, imagine how George Floyd felt when he was face-down in the road, not able to breathe, pleading for his life, having his life drained from him by the man who was supposed to serve and protect him,” she said.
“If you care about human lives at all, do your part and educate yourself, correct your ignorance.”
Inspiration
Maxey said the idea for the Gibson City protest came about after she attended a demonstration in Bloomington, Ill., on May 31.
“Throughout the week, I’m like, okay, I want to do something big,” Maxey said. “I was talking to Bailey more and more about it and we’re like, you know what, we just need to do it in Gibson. We need to do something that makes us proud of where we come from.”
The two of them then reached out to Rogers, who out of all their friends, Maxey said is “the best person we could think of that’s great at deescalating emotions when they get super high and super pent up.”
Rogers said his main goal for the protest was at act as a “voice for the people who feel voiceless.”
Maxey echoed Rogers, saying that in a community as small as the Gibson City district, “it’s not always possible to have somebody that’s going to be there as a minority leader. We wanted to be that for the kids that are in this town right now and feel like, ‘Because I’m in a small town, people aren’t going to speak up for me.'”
Community response
Many members of GCMS faculty were in attendance, including some teachers; the high school principal, Chris Garard; and Mike Allen, the high school assistant principal.
GCMS Superintendent Jeremy Darnell did not attend the protest, but did leave a comment in the event’s Facebook group: “The right and responsibility to peacefully assemble is a fundamental right formed and protected by the United States Constitution. I respect the desire to seek an improved society through peaceful and thoughtful measures. My prayers lie with all who seek and support peace, justice, and humanity. Be kind, be patient, and be tolerant!”
Rogers said response to the protest announcement was “100%” positive. “Honestly, it’s been a lot smoother than I think Audrey and myself went into it thinking that it would be,” he said. “The police department, the mayor, the Illinois state troopers–they have all made this so much easier.”
Rogers and Maxey met with Gibson City Mayor Daniel Dickey, two Illinois state troopers, Rosendahl and Kraft for about an hour on June 4 to ensure safety for all involved and discuss logistics of the protest, Maxey said. Salyards attended the meeting via phone.
Kraft said the meeting was “friendly and honest on both sides.”
“The organizers were very open with us and what they wanted to accomplish. It seemed like everything went as planned and we did not field any complaints in relation to the event,” he said.
Like Rogers, Maxey said she appreciates the amount of positivity around the protest. “It’s such a high point for such a small town to be so supportive and step up and show bigger cities that just because we’re small doesn’t mean that we have small ideals,” she said.
Key-Shawn Girkin is a 2016 graduate from GCMS High School who attended the protest.
“Coming from Gibson, not a lot of people experience or witness what’s going on on the outside. And I didn’t even see it myself until I started going to college and all that and I met people from different backgrounds,” he said. “It just makes me think it’s crazy that–even myself to be so small-minded of how things are in the world and how actually seeing it and hearing stories from other people–how crazy it is and how injustice works.”
According to World Population Review, 97.6% of Gibson City’s population is white and 0.8% of residents are Black. Gibson City has a population of 3,297 as of the 2020 census.
Alyssa Allemand 
Thank you for covering this. So proud of the organizers, and the participants, and the authorities for pulling together a peaceful, impactful protest
LikeLiked by 1 person