June 6, 2020

Massive Crowds Protest Police Violence

Hundreds of people take part in a protest at the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, DC, on June 4, 2020. Rod Lamkey Jr./Sipa via AP Images

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

For more than a week, Americans have been in the streets to protest the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery and show no sign of slowing down. Saturday has seen massive demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism, constant conditions facing Black Americans to which these recent killings have drawn renewed attention and outrage. The size of these crowds are all the more noteworthy since, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, gatherings of this size are still discouraged.

Mother Jones has reporters covering some of the protests across the country. Follow along for updates.

5:50 p.m. ET: A stunning shot of the crowds in Philadelphia.

4:30 p.m. ET: Last week, our reporter Dan Friedman broke news when he noticed that federal officers standing watch over the protests bore no identifying insignia and, when asked, would not clearly identify which agency they work for. Today, Friedman is back out there asking the officers which agency they’re with. Again, the answers run the gamut.

3:45 p.m. ET: Doctors have been on the front lines fighting the coronavirus pandemic, and many of them have been alive to the vast racial disparities in who gets and dies from the disease. In Washington, DC, reporters Matt Cohen and Dan Friedman captured a scene that’s become familiar in cities across the country: Doctors, wearing their white coats, protesting on behalf of Black lives.

3:00 p.m. ET: There are more than 10 officially announced Black Lives Matter–affiliated protests in DC today, and many of them have been making their way toward the White House. Our reporter Will Peischel is following a crowd of thousands walking from the National Mall to the White House, and another that came down Constitution Avenue.

2:00 p.m. ET: As demonstrators in Philadelphia make their way from the Museum of Art to City Hall, our reporter Dan Spinelli has captured exchanges between those marching and the police overseeing the protests. On Monday, Philadelphia police used tear gas to break up a protest on a major highway, and those in the streets today are chiding officers for the incident—tying it back to the actions of police brutality that led them to march in the first place.

1:45 p.m. ET: As our reporter Will Peischel wrote on Friday, protesters had rapidly spun up intricate supply chains to ensure those who attended demonstrations had access to food and water throughout the day—as well as face masks and disinfecting cloths. (We’re still in a pandemic, after all!) Those hydration and sanitation stations were still going strong when our reporter Matt Cohen spotted them this afternoon.

12:45 p.m. ET: Our reporter Dan Spinelli noticed that the crowds gathered outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art didn’t have much to say about President Trump, but instead directed much of their ire toward former vice president Joe Biden, who as of last night is officially the Democratic presidential nominee. As reporter Kara Voght wrote on Friday, Biden had not done much to align himself with the Movement for Black Lives during the primary, and his work on the 1994 crime bill—which ushered in an era of mass incarceration and heavy policing—has been a source of criticism.

12:30 p.m. ET: At the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza—the intersection of 16th and H streets in downtown Washington, DC, and one block from the White House, where protesters have gathered over the last week—demonstrators gather to say the names of victims of police violence.

Our reporter Matt Cohen spotted Rodney Hall, a National Guard member assigned to watch over the crowds, filming the action. He said he wanted to capture the historic moment, even while he was on the job.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate