Hundreds gather for Black Lives Matter protest in Perryville

PERRYVILLE, Mo. — Chanting, cheering, shouting and street sounds filled the air in downtown Perryville as hundreds of protesters and a few dozen counter-protesters expressed their opinions and feelings about the Black Lives Matter movement Sunday afternoon.

The protesters frequently chanted the names of both George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, who were killed by police 13 days earlier and 86 days earlier respectively. The demonstration was the second demonstration held in Perryville this past week, following an event late Thursday afternoon, which featured nine minutes of silence — the approximate amount of time former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck May 25.

In the early hours of the demonstration, the group of demonstrators took various posts throughout the square with the majority gathered near the intersection of St. Joseph and Main streets.

Honks of approval occasionally sounded from the street, but a noticeable trend of dissenting travelers were present throughout the afternoon, as well.

At one point, occupants of a pickup truck passed the demonstration and threw pacifiers at the protesters, according to Julia Leinicke — one of the organizers of the event. Leinicke said the protesters collected the pacifiers and threw them away.

Demonstrators march around downtown Perryville, Missouri, on Sunday during a Black Lives Matter protest.BEN MATTHEWS

Leinicke emphasized her desire for everyone to educate themselves on white privilege by utilizing the many online learning resources available, and to check the white privilege of those in their own communities and families.

“We’re not here to cause any animosity,” Leinicke said. “We’re here to get our voices heard.”

The protesters’ voices were heard in the downtown area as they periodically processed around the Perry County Courthouse, and as the six-hour-long event went on, the majority of the crowd migrated to the northwest corner of the square where a group of more than a dozen counter-protesters sat across the street on the west side of North Jackson Street.

At one point, members of the protest approached counter-protesters across the street and engaged in an debate before it was dissolved by police. Later, a counter-protester stepped into the street to confront a protester who photographed him.

Members of the counter-protest group expressed various reasons for their disapproval of the demonstration.

One participant in the counter-protest said while he recognized the protesters’ constitutional right to free speech, he believed the members of the Black Lives Matter protest were “invading” the local area and said he felt the need to protect his town and its businesses.

“Just because there was a dirty cop [in Minneapolis] doesn’t mean these guys [on the Perryville police force] are bad,” he said.

During an interview with the counter-protest participant, a member of the Perryville Police Department stepped in to ask the counter-protester to refrain from crossing the street and approaching the group.

Two women also standing across from the protest near the intersection of North Jackson and St. Maries streets said they felt like the protest was very “one-sided” and did not allow for communication between the group of demonstrators and the group of dissenters.

Eventually, the group of counter-protesters organized to produce a sign and place it on the back of a truck that drove one lap around the downtown square before the driver revved the engine on West St. Maries Street and was subsequently stopped by members of the Perryville Police Department.

Despite their disagreements, the two groups did not violently engage with one another and the day ultimately came to a peaceful end. The protesters also distributed yellow flowers to members of the local police force as a symbol of friendship, and explained they were not protesting the local police force specifically, but rather the national issue of police brutality.

One of the few black participants in the protest, Demond Riley, said the expressions of solidarity from the mostly-white demonstrators made him feel supported by the city and he wanted to make sure to let the people of Perryville know he had nothing but love for the people of Perryville — “all 8,993 of them.”