I wrote a couple of days ago I wrote about a local Republican, Roseanne Kotowski, who wanted to forbid a Black Lives Matter demonstration here in Groton because it would cost too much, in addition to the mess the participants would make even if they didn’t throw a brick through every window they passed. I’m pleased to report that Roseanne can rest easy. I attended the demonstration today. The park from which the march started was left clean as a whistle, the stashes of bricks that people had hidden were apparently too well hidden, and the cops were dominant, in the sense that they stood by and watched us pass while they held up traffic for the two plus mile trek from the starting off point to the City of Groton Municipal Building.
It was a far bigger crowd than I had expected. One of the panels of this collage gives a bit of an idea. I’d say there were a thousand people at the very least.
The incredible thing about this demonstration is that it was organized by students from Fitch, who had to overcome their inexperience at this sort of thing, the limitations imposed by the ongoing pandemic and the fact that they are not physically going to school.
Some of our party faithful were in attendance. Starting at the top and moving clockwise:
Stonington Democrats Gene Pfeiffer and Lisa Coleman (not office holders but hard working volunteers); Groton Mayor Patrice Granatosky, State Representative Joe de la Cruz, and Groton Town Councilor Aundre Bumgardner. They were not the only elected officials in attendance, they were the ones I corralled into having their pictures taken.
The crowd was mostly young, though there were a fair number of us geezers in attendance. Here’s hoping they all vote.