Gerald Griggs, Georgia NAACP President (Photo permission Gerald Griggs Photo credit: Kevin Lowery, @kevloweryphoto)
As I sit down on this cold January morning to share my thoughts on the events that unfolded on Saturday, Jan. 21, I’m left with the reality that we must have an honest discussion about where we are and why.
I am a sixth-generation Georgian. I am a son of the Civil Rights movement. I am a son of Atlanta and was raised by an Army veteran postal clerk and an APS school teacher. I am a civil rights lawyer, activist, but more importantly, I am a native Black Georgian, and I’m going to speak with you through the lens of a native Black Georgian.
For far too long, Black residents of the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia suffered in the sweltering heat of injustice at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve. That oath includes defending the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Georgia. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have ignored the constitutional rights of native Black Georgians to uphold the fallacy of unity instead of writing the necessary policies to protect this state’s most vulnerable population. No other group of people came into this country in chains, and no other group has spent the last 400 years fighting for legislation and the recognition of their humanity.
What happened this weekend wasn’t about Black people, their civil liberties, or their right to freedom. It was about a $90-million proposed training facility for police on the heels of one of the largest peaceful protests against police brutality the world has ever seen in 2020. The city of Atlanta ignored the outcry against spending $90 million on the public safety training facility when the root causes of the city’s problems, such as poverty, homelessness, education, and social services, have gone unaddressed.
As the president of the Georgia NAACP, I urge everyone dissatisfied with our city to be reminded that violence isn’t the way. In the words of the most famous Civil Rights Activist to ever live in Georgia, Martin Luther King, Jr., “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that,” and “True Peace is not the absence of tension but the pretense of justice.”
Given the unrest that has grown in Atlanta over the last few years and peaked this weekend over “Cop City,” I again remind all activists that the purpose of the Atlanta movement is to bring justice to the families of police brutality. From Jimmy Atchison to Rayshard Brooks to Nygil Cullins to Caine Rogers, and all of the names nationally known and locally unknown, the Atlanta Movement must remain focused on pushing back against Police Brutality.
For the organizers coming from out of town, I would remind them that Atlanta is the birthplace of the most successful social movement in American history, and it’s best to use non-violence to achieve the goals of Atlantans. This is not Seattle or Portland. We, “the Atlantans,” know how to protest in a manner that focuses the message on the problem without creating chaos. As an Atlantan by birth and a follower of King’s method of non-violent protest, I remind people to listen to the voices of the victims of police brutality and center them.
To the elected officials, it is past time to bring justice and accountability to Atlanta and Georgia. Say their names and give them justice. I lift my voice today to demand justice, the same justice that the founders of this state referenced when they wrote the Constitution of Georgia:
“To perpetuate the principles of free government, ensure justice to all, preserve peace, promote the interest and happiness of the citizen and of the family, and transmit to posterity the enjoyment of liberty, we, the people of Georgia, relying upon the protection and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this Constitution.
It is past time for our state government and municipalities to live up to the words of our Constitution in a way that allows for the preservation of all “life, liberty, and property.”
Gerald Griggs
President
NAACP Georgia State Conference
