By Anna Phillips | May 29, 2020 at 10:48 PM EDT – Updated May 29 at 10:48 PM
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Supporters plan to gather to show solidarity in the call for justice for George Floyd with a demonstration in downtown Wilmington Saturday.
On Friday, a single protestor stood for hours at the intersection of Market and Front streets downtown holding a black and white sign that read “I can’t breathe. Justice 4 George Floyd.”
“We gotta speak up, I mean the power of many joined as one, that’s a force that can’t be reckoned with,” said Brandon Odeh.
Deborah Maxwell, President of the New Hanover County NAACP, pulled from her closet this week a shirt she hadn’t worn in a while.
“I can’t breathe,” it says across the chest.
She purchased the shirt to wear as a show of solidarity after the 2014 death of Eric Garner, whose dying words were the same as Floyd’s. I can’t breathe.
She didn’t expect to be wearing it again this week.
“It felt sad, knowing that there was another man who said that he could not breathe and law enforcement ignored him,” Maxwell said.
She urges people to “take heart, be vigilant, vote and do what you need to do to help your community at this time.”
As she shares an NAACP motto:
“We are done with dying; we are absolutely done with people dying in America and we’re not talking about COVID,” she said.
The demonstration is planned for 1 p.m. at the 1898 memorial downtown.
“This is one of the ways that we can actually make an impact, it’s about spreading awareness,” he said. “If I can’t be there on the front lines trying to spread it, I’m going to do it from where I can.”
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