Pasadena Protest Leader Exhorts Followers, “History Is a Story We Are Writing Together”

A Black Lives Matter Pasadena protest gathering and march drew fewer activists than past events, but a speaker told them the change in American policing they have helped foster is profound.

“There are less people here than in other weeks,” said BLM organizer Andre Henry, “but that doesn’t mean that this is a failure in any way. Can you imagine only two months ago, any police department anywhere in the U.S., ever considering reforms and changes in basic policy?”

“Defunding police departments is now a matter of public debate. That happened in just a month,” Henry said.

“History is a story we are writing together,” he said.

Approximately 80 demonstrators—the smallest group so far in the series of weekly non-violent protests—had gathered earlier outside Pasadena Police headquarters for an hour-long open mic discussion session on racial issues and the Black Lives Matter movement.
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Afterward, the group followed the now-common protest route to Old Pasadena, where they occupied the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Fair Oaks Avenue as other demonstrators have.

On the way back to City Hall they veered off their regular route and descended upon the restaurants and shops of The Paseo, east of Old Pasadena.

The marchers gathered at the Yard House restaurant on the second level of the shopping plaza and shouted at diners through the restaurant’s open doors.

One protestor, an Asian American, related the story of Jimmy Ito, a Pasadena resident, who was shot in the back by camp police while being held at the Japanese internment camp at Manzanar during World War II, while others called for a zero-emission economy, and still others demanded a completely police-free society.

“Spend your money differently,” one protestor said, discouraging others from shopping at multinational chain stores and urging them to shop instead at independent mom-and-pop businesses.

Tatyana Riley reminded the protesters that, “This is a movement, not a moment,” and that despite the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, participants should hold fast to their cause.

‘If Covid doesn’t kill me, the system will,” she told the participants.

BLM organizer Andre Henry told the marchers that, “All movements peak and wane, and this movement should expect the same.”

Continued Henry, “You may feel like you’ve failed, but this is just a perception.”