NEWPORT — The Black Lives Matter movement, Jess Laporte said to a crowd of more than 100 on Saturday, often seems to be a reaction to Black death.
On the shore of Lake Memphremagog, she and others rallied instead to celebrate Black life.
Speaking at the Pomerleau Park waterfront just outside the state building on a bright afternoon, the Stowe woman told “every Black face in this crowd” to recognize their own strengths in the face of racism.
Soon after, her sister, Ashley, added to that message: “Still we rise from underneath the weight this white world keeps piling on us.”
They were two of several people who spoke to the crowd listening from the boardwalk and grassy park in the Northeast Kingdom city, nearly two months after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota sparked racial justice protests nationwide. Saturday’s event aimed to elevate Black and other marginalized voices in a place where there are few. Speakers described racism they’ve experienced, the toll of living as people of color and ways they can see things change.
Anthony Marques, who grew up in Lyndon and lives in Orleans County, acted as the master of ceremonies for the rally.
“The last two months, I have been labeled threatening, I have been labeled abusive, all because of what I’m doing right now,” said Marques. “Calling the bulls— out.”
He described a recent incident of a woman — who he said was his mother — accusing him of being abusive toward her and trying to use the criminal justice system against him to resolve personal problems.
“This is happening right up the f—ing road,” he said, referring to the nearby courthouse.
Griffen Sukkaew, a student at St. Johnsbury Academy, had never experienced racism before moving to the Northeast Kingdom in 2016.
That soon changed, said the student, who is of Asian descent, describing times when people used racist slurs “to my face.”
“This is not a trend,” Sukkaew said of recent rallies and protests. “We can’t treat this as one. We can’t stop fighting for justice until it’s served.”
Ceirra Manassa-Curnin, a rising senior at St. Johnsbury Academy, said she “can’t breathe” because of the constant calculations and expectations of being a Black person. She echoed the words spoken by Eric Garner, George Floyd and others during fatal encounters with police, which have become a rallying cry at protests against police brutality.
She spoke of someone calling her “the whitest Black person” they knew, of not sounding “Black enough,” and of worrying about her Black father coming home after being pulled over by police.
“They wanted a quiet, tamed, white-washed girl, but I am anything but,” she said.
Like others, she said she’d persevere after being knocked down, raising onlookers to their feet in applause.
Ashley Laporte, the woman who spoke alongside her sister, said racism in Vermont exists in two forms: “with a smile” in progressive hotspots like Burlington, and on the sleeves of people wearing the Confederate flag in more rural places like the Northeast Kingdom.
Several white people took to the microphone, too, including Martha Braithwaite and Penny Thomas, both with the nonprofit Northeast Kingdom Organizing.
“One thing I’m not going to do is ask people of color to educate me on racism,” said Thomas, a Newport resident who explained she had been raised with racist ideas about Black people.
What she will do, she said, is vote for change.
Correction: This story has been updated to include a more specific description of the turnout at Saturday’s rally.
