“No Justice. No Peace. No 
Racist Police.”
Over 
a 
thousand 
people 
gathered around the Detroit 
Public Safety Headquarters for 
the March Against the Police on 
Friday in response to incidents of 
police brutality across the nation. 
As they were social distancing 
and 
wearing 
masks, 
people 
chanted “No Justice. No Peace. 
No Racist Police.” People of all 
ages, races and backgrounds were 
present to support the Black Lives 
Matter movement. Wayne State 
University freshman Cameron 
Hawkins said he marched to 
fight for his life as a Black male in 
America. 
“My greatest fear in the world 
is getting killed by a police 
officer and I don’t think that’s 
something that I should have to 
worry about,” Hawkins said. 
Organizers 
from 
Metro-
Detroit Political Action Network, 
Occupy Detroit, Abolish ICE 
Detroit, March for Black Women 
Detroit, Progessive Caucus of the 

Michigan Democratic Party and 
Detroit Anarchist Black Cross 
hosted the event and invited 
multiple people to speak at the 
rally. 
Demands 
from 
the 
rally 
organizers included justice for 
Sha’Teina and Dan Grady El, the 
release of non-violent prisoners 
due to COVID-19, justice for 
George Floyd, freedom for the 
Los 
Angeles 
and 
Minnesota 
protesters, the discontinuation 
the use of facial recognition 
technology in law enforcement, 
immediate 
termination 
of 
employment 
and 
criminal 
charges for police officers that 
demonstrate excessive force, and 
an end to mass incarceration.
Jazmine 
Middlebrooks, 
an 
organizer from March for Black 
Women Detroit, spoke on the 
actions that need to be taken 
to handle racism. She said the 
best way for white people to 
be an ally of the Black Lives 
Matter Movement is to intervene 
whenever they encounter racism. 

Saturday afternoon, hundreds 
of community members gathered 
at the University of Michigan 
Diag 
and 
marched 
through 
Ann Arbor in protest of recent 
incidents 
of 
police 
brutality 
against Black Americans that 
shook the nation. In his opening 
address to the crowd, Ann Arbor 
resident Myles McGuire, the sole 
organizer of the event, called it a 
“civil rights protest.”
“Here we are, putting our lives 
in danger during a pandemic to 
protest civil rights,” McGuire 
said. “Not equal — civil. We’re 

asking people to be civil. Asking. 
We should not have to ask for 
civil fucking rights. We should 
not have to fear that our brothers 
and our sisters and our mothers 
and our fathers are going to be 
slaughtered by the ones meant to 
protect us and save us and help 
govern our communities.”
McGuire 
commented 
on 
the 
diversity 
of 
the 
crowd 
gathered 
before 
him, 
which 
was predominantly young and 
multiracial.
“We 
have 
to 
be 
in 
this 
together,” McGuire said. “This is 
not going to start and end with 
Black people. It’s not going to 
start and end with cops. It has to 
be done together.”
After asking the crowd “Are 
you with me?” McGuire invited 
protesters to follow him across 
the 
Diag 
towards 
the 
State 
Street shopping area. Protesters 
marched 
throughout 
the 
downtown streets, holding signs 
and chanting, “Hands up, don’t 
shoot,” “Black lives matter” and 
“No justice, no peace.”
Ann Arbor resident Kash Rai 
held up a sign reading, “Our skin 

color is not a crime.” He said he 
wanted to send a message that 
law enforcement should treat all 
citizens equally, regardless of 
race.
“It’s mostly about white cops 
treating 
colored 
people 
less 
than they would treat another 
white person, such as a noise 
complaint,” Rai said. “It’s ‘Hey, 
shut this party down,’ to a Black 
person versus, ‘Can you just turn 
it down?’ to a white person, which 
I’ve experienced personally.”
Rasem Piromarm, a recent 
graduate 
of 
Caledonia 
High 
School, said he found out about 
the protest from his cousin who 
lives in Ann Arbor. Having grown 
up facing discrimination in his 
predominantly white township, 
Piromarm said he came as a show 
of solidarity, 
“All I grew up hearing was, 
‘You’re a terrorist. You’re a 
bomber,’ because I’m Muslim,” 
Piromarm said. “It was like it 
was me against the world … And 
I relate so much to what’s going 

Thursday, June 4, 2020

INDEX

Vol. CXXIX, No. 116
 © 2020 The Michigan Daily 
NEWS ....................................
PHOTO SPREAD ..................
OPINION ...............................
ARTS........................................
MiC.........................................
SPORTS................................

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‘This is another pandemic’: protesters take to the streets in Ann Arbor 

Read more at michigandaily.com

CALDER LEWIS & 
JULIANNA MORANO 
Summer News Editor & 
Daily Staff Reporter

michigandaily.com

Demanding Justice, Demanding Peace

Photo by Dominick Sokotoff 

Thousands gather to protest racism in Detroit

JASMIN LEE 
Summer Managing News Editor

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Read more at michigandaily.com

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