CLARKSVILLE, Tenn (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Hundreds gathered on Saturday, June 6, at Public Square for an afternoon of speakers, education and peaceful protest.
The event was one of several protests to take place in Clarksville over the past week in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Among those in attendance were members of the Clarksville City Council, Montgomery County Commission, District 67 Representative Jason Hodges, District 54 Representative Vincent Dixie and Senator Jeff Yarbro.
Local advocacy groups spoke to the crowd about the importance of participating in local elections as well as in this year’s census.
“I am really happy that people have taken time out from their Saturday to come and learn and figure out how to make our community better,” said Juanita Charles, one of the event’s organizers. “The objective of today’s gathering is to inform people of what is going on and let them know that it is a real occurrence and give people direction., What can we do to improve our community.”
“For us as legislators, it is important that people become active,” said Representative Hodges. “Activists are the people that pass bills. We have presented bill after bill and the majority has prevented those bills from going anywhere. I think that has historically been the case. Every big piece of legislation was never really passed by politicians. It was passed by activists. So, we need this right now. It’s gotta continue and we are here to support it.
“Events like these are important because it is important that every level of government get involved,” said Representative Dixie. “And not just every level of government but that the grass roots organizations get involved. A lot has changed over this week. People were just angry. They had to vent, to get that anger out. Now we are at a point that we are tired of being mad, what are we gonna do about it?” That’s what we are here for. To work with the community. We are supposed to be arm in arm.”
“People are coming together here because they want to see some change,” he continued.
“I think the job of those in elected office right now is to listen, and I think that people are making it clear that they want to see change, they want to see justice and they want to know that elected officials are listening and responding to that,” said Senator Yarbro”I think that anybody that thinks that any governmental body has listened well enough and has responded well enough to this issue over the last years is kidding themselves. I think that if all of us in elected office had been listening, you wouldn’t see protests in every small town and city in the country right now.
Elected officials at the event all agreed that the Clarksville-Montgomery County community had handled protests in an overall peaceful and positive manner.
