FIGHTING
Meet the young activists
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Police Blotter ..........................8
Opinion ...................................20
Letters ..................................... 21
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HOW TO REACH US
COURIER L 2 IFE, JUNE 26-JULY 2, 2020
NUPOL KIAZOLU
Nupol Kiazolu, the 20-yearold
president of Black
Lives Matter Greater
New York, has organized some
of the largest George Floyd
protests in the city — including
a march on June 2 from
Bryant Park to Trump Towers
that drew more than 15,000
people.
The march was non-violent
— just as all of Kiazolu’s protests
have been — but Kiazolu
clarifi ed that while she does
not believe in violence, she
doesn’t advocate for peaceful
passivity, either.
“I’m not peaceful,” Kiazolu
told Brooklyn Paper. “When
I say, ‘No justice, no peace,’ I
mean that.”
The city’s Black Lives Matter
chapter does more than organize
demonstrations — including
drafting legislation,
teaching young activists, and
supports grassroots political
candidates. “Black Lives Matter,
we don’t just protest, we
work behind the scenes and
the front lines,” she said.
Kiazolu had her fi rst brush
with activism when she was
just 12 years old, after a neighborhood
watchman killed
17-year-old Trayvon Martin in
Florida.
“His murder really ignited
a fi re in my heart that I’d never
felt before,” she said.
Kiazolu held a silent protest
at her middle school in Georgia,
where she and other students
wore hoodies to protest
his killing, she said. Teachers
sent her to the principal’s offi
ce and wrote her up for detention,
but her math teacher
stood up for her.
“This woman literally
risked her job by walking
down to the principal’s offi ce
with me with her hoodie on in
solidarity,” Kiazolu said. The
principal allowed Kiazolu to
research her fi rst amendment
rights as a student to prove her
right to protest, which she did.
“At that point, I knew being an
activist was my calling.”
CHIBUEZE EZENYILIMBA
Chibueze Ezenyilimba,
a 23-year-old Queens
native, said he and his
friends were inspired to host a
march after hearing President
Donald Trump deride protesters
and call them “thugs.”
“My friend and the cofounder
of the Black Tie Walk,
his name is Keith, he posted
a video of a couple African-
American men dressed nice
and walking down the stairs,”
Ezenyilimba said. “I was like,
‘We should do that.’ We should
dress down, show excellence
and that we’re not thugs — try
to change that narrative.”
The group decided to hold a
march — dubbed the Black Tie
Walk — on June 5 from Fort
Greene Park to Prospect Park
to protest police brutality and
combat racist stereotypes. To
Ezenyilimba’s surprise, hundreds
of people showed up.
“As we walked, we picked
up people,” he said. “I’d say by
the time we reached our destination
we had upwards of 1,000
people with us. It ended up being
huge.”
Ezenyilimba said that when
he was young, he witnessed police
offi cers stop and frisk his
11-year-old brother, who was
exceptionally tall for his age,
while the two were waiting
for their mom to pick them up
from a playdate.
“We didn’t really see much
to it because we were younger,”
he said. “But then when you’re
older you start to realize that’s
not acceptable.”
Routine abuses combined
with the deaths of many Black
Americans at the hands of police
have exasperated young
Black Americans, Ezenyilimba
said, sparking the present
day protests.
“We were taught in school
that our ancestors, our
grandparents, this is what
they walk for. This is what
they were doing, and now the
fact is that we have to do it as
well, like nothing changed, is
crazy,” he said.
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