Sacramento’s Black Lives Matter protests echo the past: ‘How long must we wait?’

In the quadrangle at UC Davis, nearly 4,000 people sat in silence. The only sound was the carillon bells, ringing Black spirituals across the grassy expanse.

Then, over the loudspeakers, came a series of speeches. Dale Rubin, a UC Davis student and leader of the event, demanded “action from the white population,” cautioning that its absence would bring “the savagery of 30 million black people” against them.

Another participant, Kirsten Steinmo, urged the crowd to “not ask our Black brothers to carry on their protest alone.” Another still called the audience murderers, because every day, white Americans are responsible for the “systematic denial of humanity” against Black people, said Melba Nelson.

Those echoes of the past — in both language and sentiment — ring in the words shouted by Sacramento protesters throughout the past few weeks. George Floyd’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25 sparked a wave of marches and gatherings nationwide, with people paying tribute to Black victims of police brutality and condemning white privilege.

Since the protests began, The Bee has covered what they’ve looked like in the Sacramento area. Countless interviews, video streams, and photographs populate The Bee’s digital pages and the Twitter accounts of its reporters, updating the public in real time.

The speeches at UC Davis, though, took place on April 6, 1968. The people congregated not to avenge George Floyd, but to memorialize Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated two days earlier.

During the global unrest following Dr. King’s death in 1968, The Bee relied on print to spread word to its readers. On April 5, The Bee wrote that “Shock, Grief Over Savage Killing Stir Dark Doubt” across the country; On April 7, it highlighted the “Worldwide Demonstrations of Rage, Sorrow” that spanned America to Tokyo.

The articles’ tiny words and tiny columns, smudged with black ink and accompanied by black-and-white photographs, attest to their age. So does their use of the word “Negro” instead of “black.” In one headline, Dr. King is a “Slain Negro Leader.”

There was further unrest in Sacramento in 1968, including shots fired at police officers in Oak Park and demonstrations by students at high schools who didn’t feel like their cultures were represented in the curricula.

Still, the events and feelings the articles after King’s assassination describe are familiar. There were quotes preaching against further bloodshed, not unlike the denunciation of vandalism today; there were quotes warning that, without justice and equality for Black Americans, bloodshed was inevitable.

“The Black people have been slaves, second-class citizens too long, and they have cried out for recognition,” said Terry Turner at UC Davis in 1968. “How long must we wait?”

Fifty years later, people in the streets of Sacramento are asking the same.

This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 7:48 AM.