In images, in picturesJune 19 in the United States is celebrated Juneteenth, in memory of that day in 1865 when the last slaves were freed in Texas. Demonstrations have been seen across the country.
"Black lives matter" ("Black lives matter") was on all the signs. Friday June 19, thousands of Americans celebrated 155e anniversary of June 19, 1865, the day that marked the liberation of the last slaves in the United States. A particularly symbolic commemoration at a time when the question of racial inequality has suddenly arisen in the United States. Less than a month ago, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, died face down, neck under the knee of a white policeman in Minneapolis.
"I am a black woman, I have lived in this country for twenty years and I am here to say that the lives of black people count, those of my children and my brothers, so that we can live in a safe country"said Tabatha Bernard, 38, from Trinidad and Tobago, in the imposing New York motorcade. Juneteenth celebrations (contraction of "June" and "19" in English), this day of 1865 when the last slaves were freed in Texas, were observed in the four corners of the country.
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"Make them accountable"
In addition to commemorating the end of slavery a century and a half earlier, messages also focused on the painful news of police violence. In Washington, the demonstration began around the monument in memory of Martin Luther King at the call of professionals from local basketball clubs, with signs denouncing "Racism, oppression and police violence". "We cannot eliminate all racist police officers"says Joshua Hager, 29, but "We want to fire the majority and make them accountable."
In everyone's mind is engraved the memory of the last minutes of George Floyd's life, filmed in a video that has since gone viral on social networks. "Please, please, I can't breathe"you hear him say, down on the street, unarmed and handcuffed, his neck under the knee of a white policeman. But also those of other African-American people who died as a result of police interventions, such as Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta on June 12, or Breonna Taylor, a black nurse killed in her apartment in March.
Slavery past
Later, the demonstration went to the White House for a festive rally on the newly baptized "Black Lives Matter Plaza". Hundreds of people danced to go-go, a genre of funk music born in the capital, before marching through the streets of the city center.
In the procession of the Washington demonstration, Yamina BenKreira expresses the wish that the history of African-Americans be better taught so that young people "Become aware" discrimination. In recent weeks, calls for an unbolt of monuments to the glory of Confederate soldiers – defending during the American Civil War (1861-1865) the slave camp – which swarm in the south of the country, have justly multiplied . In the night of Friday to Saturday, anti-racist demonstrators also shot down the only statue of a Confederate general erected in the American capital, chanting the slogan "Black lives matter".
Tulsa, symbol city
Sixty years after the civil rights movement, the black minority (13% of the population) remains the forgotten great of prosperity. Poorer and less healthy, it is under-represented at the political level and over-represented in prisons.
If he denounced the deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, Donald Trump mainly directed his speeches against the demonstrators, regularly calling for " Law and order ". The Republican billionaire running for a second term resumes his campaign rallies in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday. He had aroused indignation by choosing the symbolic date of June 19 and had to postpone it to the next day. The city remains haunted by the memory of the massacre of nearly 300 African-American people by a white crowd in 1921.
Fearing overflows when more than 100,000 people are expected in the county of 650,000 inhabitants, the mayor had declared a partial curfew until Sunday but the president obtained his cancellation. " Have fun "he wrote to his supporters on Twitter.
