Protests Not An Issue On An Unusual Derby Day

“I don’t see no riot here, so why are you in riot gear?”

That was the chant that the social justice group Until Freedom chanted at the Louisville police force as they marched outside of Churchill Downs on Saturday, but despite the presence of opposing groups brandishing weapons and carrying American flags and Trump 2020 signs, as they said, there was no riot here.

The clashes many feared would materialize on Derby Day failed to do so. With opposing groups lining up on opposing sides of the track with police in riot gear lining up behind a fence opposite each group, there was little opportunity for interaction.

Just before the race, protesters chanted and waved noisemakers and chanted Breonna Taylor’s name, according to the Louisville radio station WFPL, which broadcast updates throughout the day.

The police were out early and in force outside of Churchill Downs, concentrating their resources on the area despite wider-spread protesters in town earlier in the day. Minor confrontations between groups on either side of the issue began early, according to WLKY, Louisville’s CBS affiliate, which reported that first to arrive downtown was a group calling themselves “patriots” of a right-wing militia led by a man calling himself Angry Viking and chanting pro-police slogans. USA Today reported that a group of “predominantly white men, women and children” clad in helmets and face masks carrying firearms marched through downtown. While police separated the groups, the situation didn’t escalate beyond that.

By 4:30, according to WLKY, Until Freedom-a social justice group with the goal of addressing systemic and racial injustice–was holding a peaceful rally at South Central Park before marching to Churchill Downs. Police kept the pro-Trump groups far away.

Louisville has been one of the focal spots for the Black Lives Matter protests which ensued after the death of George Floyd, and protestors had hoped to benefit from the national focus on the Derby to promote their message of racial injustice. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed in Minneapolis May 25 after police office Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes while Floyd begged for his life and said he couldn’t breathe.

The protests over Floyd’s killing inspired similar ones in Louisville, where Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman and Louisville EMT, was killed in March when three policemen burst into her apartment in the middle of the night and opened fire, shooting her eight times. Because there was no police body camera footage of the incident, it went largely unnoticed by the national press or the racial justice movement until activists got hold of the story. While one officer was fired, the two others remain on the force while calls for their arrests continue to mount, and incidences of violence in the city have increased.

Taylor was killed just six miles from Churchill Downs, and many organizers of the protests had wanted the Derby to be suspended this year, including Louisville pastor Tim Findley. “Absolutely not,” Findley told NBC News on Saturday when asked if he felt the Derby should have been held Saturday. “The eyes of the world are on Louisville this weekend. The Derby is the perfect event to let the world know the community is not okay. People will look back and say there was a collection of people–an entire city really–that stood up and said we cannot go on with business as usual.”

The post Protests Not An Issue On An Unusual Derby Day appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Churchill Issues Statement On Racial Justice As Planned Protests Draw National Attention

This Saturday at Churchill Downs, Greg Harbut and Ray Daniels will represent the first African-American ownership to take part in the Kentucky Derby in 13 years. However, leading up to this year's historic, delayed-by-pandemic edition of the Run for the Roses, Harbut has been contacted by civil rights activists about scratching his first Derby horse, Necker Island; a symbol to show he stands with Louisville, Ky.'s African-American community.

“I do agree that Black Lives Matter, and that there should be justice for Breonna Taylor,” Harbut told the Paulick Report last week.

Breonna Taylor's death at the hands of Louisville police back in March was one of the events that turned the city unto one of the country's hot spots for protesters seeking racial justice. Activists have urged Churchill officials to cancel the Kentucky Derby, but their pleas went unanswered as Churchill chose to go ahead with the event, albeit without fans in the stands. As such, several groups are planning protests on Kentucky Derby day: No Justice No Peace Louisville, Black Lives Matter Louisville, the Until Freedom group, and the NFAC, among others.

Those planned protests are getting national media attention as Derby Day draws ever-closer, from local and national news outlets, in the form of both news stories and editorials.

Harbut empathizes with the protesters, but he won't pass up a chance to stand in the grandstand to which his grandfather was unjustly denied access more than 50 years ago.

In 1962, Tom Harbut was the breeder and co-owner of Kentucky Derby contender Touch Bar, but his name didn't appear in the program and he wasn't allowed to watch the race from the grandstand; it was whites-only. (Touch Bar finished 11th that year)

“My grandfather bred the horse and owned part of him and, at the time, his role in what is one of the most prestigious races in the world was not acknowledged,” Harbut told the New York Times this week. “This is part of my family's legacy, and it is a chance to remind people on a big stage — the biggest stage — that horse racing history here begins with African-Americans.”

Fifteen of the first 28 Kentucky Derbies were won by African-American jockeys, beginning with Oliver Lewis in 1875 (Aristides), and six of the first 17 Kentucky Derby winners were conditioned by African-American trainers. That all changed in the mid-1900s, and it took 79 years for another African-American jockey to appear in the Kentucky Derby (from Henry King in 1921 to Marlon St. Julien in 2000).

As award-winning sports journalist Eric Crawford wrote for Louisville's wdrb.com, “This isn't yesterday. This is today. An entire race of people was wiped from involvement in the upper levels of the industry — and they have not returned. For a long time, the memory of those who did succeed in the Derby was forgotten. White-washed.”

Harbut hopes the visual of African-American ownership on racing's biggest stage will help draw more African-Americans back into the sport, but protesters and civil rights activists are hoping for a different image on this historic Kentucky Derby day. While calls to cancel the race have been unsuccessful, the protests planned for Saturday afternoon could continue to bring national attention to issues of social justice.

“The lack of fans has the potential to dull, just a little, the impact of these protests,” wrote Sam Fels for Deadspin. “The visual of protesters merely asking for racial equality juxtaposed with those adorned in Kentucky Derby hats sipping on juleps or meat-headed fratboys headed for the infield would have made for a striking illustration. It also would have been a likelier flashpoint between protestors and police, because it is unlikely that protesters would be allowed anywhere near attendees or the track. There would have been no way NBC could ignore what would have ensued.”

Churchill Downs acknowledged calls to cancel the Derby in a statement released Thursday, which is printed in full below.

“We know there are some who disagree with our decision to run the Kentucky Derby this year,” the statement read in part. “We respect that point of view but made our decision in the belief that traditions can remind us of what binds us together as Americans, even as we seek to acknowledge and repair the terrible pain that rends us apart.”

Meanwhile, the Louisville Metro Police Force will have an all-work day on duty to ensure that the Kentucky Derby event proceeds as planned on Saturday.

“To say the Kentucky Derby is a time of unity when it is the symbol of segregation in our city shows your lack of knowledge about reality,” a frustrated Jecorey Arthur, a local musician and Louisville Metro councilman-elect, told the Courier-Journal. “It's 2020, and if you look at the past 20 years of our inclusion or exclusion when it comes to Derby, we are still very much in the 1920s, still very much in the Jim Crow era.

“There's potential (for unity), but we can't get to that point until you acknowledge the injustice.”

Churchill's statement also acknowledged that “We are not doing enough, quickly enough,” and intimated that it plans to take “real, concrete action to address institutional roadblocks to progress,” but failed to lay out specifics.

“The effects of decisions 120 years ago still work to exclude Blacks from this industry that they once found great success in,” Crawford continued. “The sooner many of us not only acknowledge these injustices but recognize the current effects they have, the sooner we step toward a lasting solution.

“But it's going to take all of us. And many are going to have to crawl out of entrenched positions and walk forward for anything meaningful to happen.”

Churchill Downs released the following statement on Thursday, two days before the 2020 Kentucky Derby:

The Kentucky Derby has been run every year for the past 145 years. It is a great American tradition that has survived depressions, wars, pandemics and myriad changes in our country, large and small.

The first Derby was run just ten years after the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery in America. Over ninety years later, during the 1967 Derby, protesters took to the streets around Churchill Downs, demanding equality and change.

Today, more than fifty years after that, our fellow Kentuckians and fellow Americans are still asking to be heard; for all of us to understand the ongoing inequality that exists, and finally to adopt meaningful change.

We are not doing enough, quickly enough. That is true in our country, in our city and in our sport.

We know there are some who disagree with our decision to run the Kentucky Derby this year. We respect that point of view but made our decision in the belief that traditions can remind us of what binds us together as Americans, even as we seek to acknowledge and repair the terrible pain that rends us apart.

Our sport shares a disconcerting history that led to the exclusion of Black jockey participation through the years. The legacy of the Kentucky Derby begins with the incredible success of Black jockeys. We feel it is imperative to acknowledge the painful truths that led to their exclusion. Churchill Downs strongly believes in preserving and sharing the stories of the Black jockeys who are a critical part of this tradition. This is not a new commitment, but we continue to seek ways to share these stories and honor these athletes.

Our goal has always been that the Kentucky Derby and the way it is observed throughout the city should be inclusive of the entire Louisville community. However, we hear the calls to do more and we have challenged ourselves to do so. We hear the voices that tell us we have not successfully created an environment in which everyone feels welcome or included. That is not acceptable and we need to do more to ensure that our best intentions become a reality. We need to do more, now, to ensure that every member of our community is a part of our traditions. Churchill Downs is committed to engaging in the hard conversations in our city, our sport and within our own organization. We are committed to taking real, concrete action to address institutional roadblocks to progress and playing our part in advancing the changes America so desperately needs.

We recognize that people in our community and across our nation are hurting right now. The atmosphere of the Kentucky Derby will be different this year as we respond to those calls for change. This will be a Derby unlike any other. As it should be.

The post Churchill Issues Statement On Racial Justice As Planned Protests Draw National Attention appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Protesters March Outside Churchill Downs, Demand Justice For Breonna Taylor

Planned racial injustice protests took a crowd of demonstrators past the gates at the frontside of Churchill Downs on Tuesday. The afternoon's demonstrations resulted in 64 arrests for charges of obstructing the roadway and disorderly conduct, acting Louisville Metro Police Chief Robert Schroeder told whas11.com. The protests were scheduled by national organization Until Freedom at the end of a four-day conference dedicated to the pursuit of justice in the death of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was killed by Louisville police in March of this year.

One of Until Freedom's co-founders, Linda Sarsour, was among those arrested.

Protesters met around 2:00 p.m. at South Central Park, then marched to the Louisville Metro Police Department Training Academy where they changed letters on the marquee to read “I see murderers.” From there, the protesters marched toward Churchill Downs, crossing the bridge on Central Avenue near Cardinal Stadium.

Arrests were made when protesters blocked the street, and Until Freedom march coordinators urged those who didn't wish to be arrested to stick to the sidewalks. Those protesters arriving at the frontside of Churchill Downs chanted “F*ck your Derby,” and hung a sign with Breonna Taylor's name on it near the front gate.

Calls from Louisville's Black community to boycott the race reach as far back as mid-July, but they have gotten louder as the Sept. 5 race gets closer.

The Justice and Freedom Coalition is one of four groups now calling for a boycott of the Kentucky Derby – joined by No Justice No Peace Louisville, the Louisville chapter of Black Lives Matter, and the national group Until Freedom – who say it an inappropriate time to hold the event while there is unrest in Louisville.

“You can understand people's frustration,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in his daily news briefing Tuesday. “Certainly, those that hold the Kentucky Derby have absolutely no control over the timing of the [Breonna Taylor] investigation, or when we will have any type of results. I hope there can at least be a positive dialogue there. That's certainly a large facility in an area of Louisville where a lot of good could be done together.”

LMPD units have been stationed outside the Churchill Downs stable gate for the past several days, according to multiple sources, and that presence is expected to continue as the ramp up to Sept. 5 continues. Churchill officials are taking other extra precautions for this year's spectatorless Kentucky Derby, including a hard perimeter, which is not usually part of the day's security plan.

Sources inside Churchill told the Paulick Report that the track is ready to go and that there are multiple plans in place which can be implemented to respond to rising levels of unrest around the area.

The post Protesters March Outside Churchill Downs, Demand Justice For Breonna Taylor appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights