Tears, Resolve Mark Zoom Vigil To Protest Killing Of George Floyd

NORTH FORK, NY — Tears streaming down their faces and filling their voices, a crowd of about 100 signed on to a Zoom vigil, "For Liberty and Justice for All," held Saturday on the North Fork in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Monday.

Holding candles, all took place in a powerful moment of silence to protest racism and hatred across the nation.

A video of Floyd with a police officer's knee on his neck as he begged for help and said, "I can't breathe" and cried out for his mother have sparked a wave of emotion across the world.

The silent vigil was presented by the Southold Anti-Bias Task Force and the North Fork Unity Action Committee.

Southold ABTF co-chair Sonia Spar, sobbing, said she had a broken heart over Floyd's death.

The event included a heart-rending video of the song "I Just Wanna Live" written and performed by 12-year-old gospel singer Keedron Bryant.

"It is not okay to watch a handcuffed black man murdered. It has to stop. You can't hold your breath for two minutes, but this man kept his knee on a man's neck for nine minutes, as he was saying, 'I can't breathe,'" Southold Anti-Bias Task Force co-chair Val Shelby said.

Shelby quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, "Men are what their mothers made them."

She added: "I am speaking directly to white mothers. How are you raising your children? How you raise your children is how they become adults. We must teach our children to treat everyone with respect. We have to stop this systemic racism. We have to stand up for what's right. Please, be an advocate for people of color."

While every community has issues, working together, "we can change the narrative," Shelby said, and not with rioting or picket lines. "We need to stand strong as a community, my white brothers and sisters. Your voices are needed now — later is too late," she said.

Spar said it is impossible to deny that racism has long existed in the nation. "It was embedded in the narrative of slavery," she said; the goal is to eradicate racism and bigotry, to care about one another.

"Stop caring about just you and care about our friends, our families, our brothers and sisters that may not look like, live like, pray like you. It is then that we can be able to help our brothers and sisters in the African American community. The way they are living is unbearable," she said.

And, Spar said, the outrage does not begin with Floyd. "There are too many incidents. Each one feels more devastating, more enraging, more terrifying than the last one." Spar said she is terrified for children of color, who are "afraid of going out. There is no feeling free or safe in their homes, and not in public. This is a vigil for justice and freedom for all. We, as a community, need to do something. We need to make things better, because it's unacceptable."

While Spar said she. condemns rioting, she added that what must also be condemned are the "contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society; these conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellion."

Spar then quoted Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "The Other America" speech: "And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity."

Carolyn Peabody of the ABTF said the group, isolated in their homes, had come together "in grief and outrage to denounce hatred and the inequality that spawns it."

While the group, faced covered with masks, some covered with powerful messages, engaged in a emotional, candlelight moment of silence, Peabody said next steps must be taken.

"Having had our moment of silence, we must now all commit to never being silent again," Peabody said.

Individuals, she said, must ensure the criminal justice system is "proactively assessed and transformed to eliminate implicit and explicit bias." People, she said, must call on their legislators to institute "real oversight on our public guardians and the systems that allow for and encourage racist beliefs and actions."

Civilian oversight panels, independent of political parties, must be established, Peabody said. "And we must call for the criminalization of frivolous 911 calls that are used as racist acts to threaten innocent people of color," Peabody said, struggling to hold back tears.

The community, she said, must work together, build coalitions — and vote. And, she said, it is critical that all be counted in the census, which determines representation in government.

The group listened at "Stand By Me," was played, after which the group vowed to work together.

"No justice, no peace," Shelby said.

Southold Democratic Committee Chair Kathryn Casey Quigley said, of the event: "It was a powerful moment of solidarity. And I’m so grateful to the Anti-Bias Task Force and North Fork Unity Action Committee for their leadership. Now we, as white people, must answer their call to turn that solidarity into action to take steps to all be actively anti-racist and dismantle systemic racism in our society.”

"Don't let them get away with this," Peabody said.