‘We must press on.’ State College community marks anniversary of George Floyd’s death
One year after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, State College community members gathered Tuesday to reflect on Floyd’s life and the lives of other Black Americans lost to police brutality in the last 365 days.
Floyd was a Black man whose May 25, 2020 death at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked national outrage and resurfaced publicity of the Black Lives Matter movement.
About 100 community members showed up to Tuesday’s “George Floyd Memorial Community Vigil for Black Lives,” hosted by the 3/20 Coalition in the Sidney Friedman Park.
The coalition — a group of local activists formed after the 2019 death of State College resident Osaze Osagie, a Black man killed by State College police — invited community members to participate in reflective small group conversations and a silent march that ended with a memorial.
Standing under the pavilion at the park, Tierra Williams, co-leader of the coalition, began the evening with an opening message about the coalition’s work and the ongoing need for racial justice.
“Until all Black lives matter,” Williams said, “we must press on.”
Williams spoke to the event attendees as some sat on benches around the park, but most sat on the grassy hill in front of the pavilion. Behind the pavilion hung posters and banners written with statements like “Black Lives Matter,” “Honoring Osaze’s Legacy,” “Justice for Breonna Taylor,” and “Osaze’s Beloved Community.”
Nanre Nafziger, 42, is a co-founder of the 3/20 Coalition and was involved in the planning of the vigil, which took about six weeks.
Nafziger said the coalition planned the events as a way to provide the community an opportunity to reflect on Floyd’s life and the lives of other Black Americans lost due to police violence in the past year, which she said had “been a pretty intense year of struggle nationally and locally.”
“I think it’s important for us to come together collectively and not just reflect on our work as a coalition, but also on the collective work for justice for Black lives across the college, really continuing to fashion out a more united front,” she said.
After Floyd’s death, Nafziger said the coalition decided to broaden their advocacy to include the national Black Lives Matter movement, in addition to continuing local work.
Weeks after Floyd’s death last year, the coalition organized a protest in State College that drew more than 1,000 people to demand justice for Floyd and other members of the Black community who died at the hands of police.
Since then, the coalition has hosted events honoring the lives of Breonna Taylor and Dante Wright, two unarmed Black Americans whose deaths, like Floyd’s, caused national outrage.
Penn State graduate student resident Lyana Sun Han Chang attended the coalition’s vigil on Tuesday and said she makes a point to attend as many of the 3/20 Coalition’s events as possible.
“I feel like (at every event) there seems to be less and less people, and so I just really want ... the momentum to keep going and to keep at least being a body in that space,” she said.
Event attendee Hsia-Ting Chang said she chose to attend the event as a way to “share a reflection with the community.”
The 30-year-old described her experience at the event as “lovely,” noting that she’s never been to a coalition event that featured small group discussion, but that she was impressed with how it went.
Groups spent about an hour and a half sitting in circles on the grass discussing three questions on a piece of paper that was given to all attendees:
One the front of the card were written three discussion questions:
Past: How did you feel when George Floyd was murdered?
Present: What has been your experience in the struggle for Black lives and against anti-racism and how are you feeling now?
Future: What does the future look like and how do we move forward collectively?
On the back of the card were “community agreements” to ensure productive and respectful sharing.
“I really admire the way the organizers set it up and provided us with ... targeted discussion questions that kind of served as impetus for focusing the kind of sharing that goes on, and I think, really anchored discussion in a productive way,” Hsia-Ting said.
Divine Lipscomb, a candidate for State College Borough Council who last week won a seat in the Democratic primary election, also said he was impressed with the opportunity to share in what he called “restorative circles.” As the president of Penn State’s Restorative Justice Initiative, an organization that aims to empower incarcerated individuals through education, he was familiar with the experience but said seeing those conversations move off campus was “phenomenal.”
“I’m excited to see this continue to take place in our community,” he said.
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 11:08 PM.