Hundreds of “predominantly white” demonstrators took a public oath to speak up against racism at a Black Lives matter demonstration in Bethesda, Maryland, on Tuesday afternoon.
The protest was part of ongoing nationwide demonstrations against the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week.
Local Fox 5 DC reported:
A compelling moment, before the march, came when everyone in the gathering raised both hands in the air at once (as protesters are often seen doing when they chant, “hand-up don’t shoot”). It was then that the hundreds of protesters, with their both hands raised, repeated an oath not to stay silent about “racism, anti-blackness or violence.”
One of the student protest organizers, a young Black Walt Whitman High School graduate, told FOX 5 DC she was very excited to see the crowd, which she noted was predominately white.
“It means a lot because going to, living in Bethesda, being one of the only Black girls at my school, it’s – I face a lot of ignorance,” said Rachel Adeoti.
Video of the oath went viral on Twitter, with some comparing the spectacle to a “cult”:
The crowd was led in chanting lines such as: “I will love my black neighbors the same as my white ones.”
Elsewhere around the nation, protests were quieter, as the National Guard was called out in 29 states — with President Donald Trump’s encouragement.
The Associated Press reported: “Nation’s streets calmest in days; police credit curfews.”
However, there are still tensions in many cities. In Chicago, for example, police closed highway off-ramps near malls in suburban communities for fear of looting.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.