On April 27 and over the next five days, riots raged throughout the city. Vehicles and businesses were set ablaze. It was easily the most tenuous time in Baltimore’s history, and with Black America on alert, then-mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake awarded $6.4 million to the Gray family as the result of a civil suit following a mistrial in his death. City officials had seen what happened in Ferguson and Cleveland, and now with its town in crisis, the mayor wanted to heal a community that’d been hurting for so long. But there was no putting a Band-Aid on this; no amount of money could make up for Gray’s death. And just like in Ferguson and Staten Island, at least one protester’s life came to an early end. Juan Grant, who was a close friend of Gray’s and led a protest at the Western District police station following the incident, was shot and killed on the fourth anniversary of Gray’s funeral. According to police and media reports, Grant had been driving to his grandmother’s home when his car collided with a dirt bike. The person on the bike shot and killed him. Grant was a father and devoted community activist who demanded justice for his slain friend. Now Grant’s family was left to wonder why he had been taken away so senselessly.
On July 13, 2015, the body of Sandra Bland was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, where she was detained after a minor traffic stop. In a self-recorded cell phone video made public four years later, Bland and State Trooper Brian Encinia were seen having a tense exchange on the side of the road, as the officer—holding a stun gun—threatened to tag her if she didn’t get out of her vehicle. Bland’s death was ruled a suicide, which raised immediate questions from activists, who already distrusted law enforcement and figured they were lying about the circumstances of her passing. Though Encinia was indicted on a charge of perjury, the charge was dismissed after he agreed to never again work in law enforcement. Bland had been outspoken about police brutality and racial injustice, and up until 2019, the public was made to believe that the officer feared for his life, and that’s why he threatened her with a Taser. Yet the video said otherwise; Encinia grew increasingly frustrated with a person who knew her rights. “My sister died because a police officer saw her as a threatening black woman rather than human,” Bland’s sister, Sharon Cooper, once wrote in an op-ed for USA Today. “Our mere existence is perceived as such a threat to police officers that we’re consistently asked to pay for our freedom with our bodies and sometimes even with our blood.… My sister was unafraid. Her strength gives us the power to continue to fight for her and say her name.”
In late July 2015, amid incredibly high tensions, a crowd of protesters gathered on the campus of Cleveland State University to lament the killing of Tamir Rice. Demonstrators throughout the United States still seethed from similar deaths in other states, and almost daily, new groups of people took to the streets to rally against injustice. Following the Movement for Black Lives conference, where local demonstrators and members of Black Lives Matter met to discuss the rampant police brutality that swept the country, the group left the conference en route to the buses slated to take them to their respective homes. Standing outside, the group noticed police officers harassing a young boy for carrying what they thought was an open container of alcohol onto the bus. The boy was fourteen years old, and because the city had just mourned the death of Tamir, the strain reached a boiling point. Incredulous, the crowd questioned the transit police officer about why the child was being detained. They were pepper-sprayed. Someone in the crowd asked for the phone number of the boy’s mother. She was called and was soon there talking to police. According to news accounts, the boy was released from police custody and went home with his mother. The crowd of two hundred was elated; for the first time in almost a year, they had a win against law enforcement. Soon, a chant started to billow throughout the mass:
We gon’ be alright!
We gon’ be alright!
It was a heroic scene, a sea of triumphant black people walking through the streets, passing police cruisers like they weren’t even there. No way could this make up for the loss of life that permeated the past two years, but for a brief time, all the agony led to this moment, right there in Cleveland. In months past, the movement had escalated beyond peace and became violent at different points. But the Cleveland demonstration was a flash point for the movement overall, and now it had an anthem tying it together. Along with the strides activists made in cities like New York and Cleveland, the movement had its own “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” albeit with a few cusswords. But that was the temperature of the time. We were tired of trying to overcome and wanted equal treatment right now.
The action was captured on video and
