Outside the brand-spankin'-new police department building, Gainesville, Florida participated in the National Moment of Silence to pay respect to the victims of police shootings and brutality. Big turnout.. grieving people GET IT that you don't skip a funeral because of a little rain.
And the takeaway? What can we do to make things better? We got the message loud and clear from one of our speakers, an African American native of Memphis, a civil rights activist since she was a jailed and beaten participant in Freedom Summer, and an inspiration to Gainesville and far, far beyond. She said, among other things, that the passage of the Voting Rights Act was a huge victory but the fact that majority black communities have overwhelmingly majority white city councils and police forces shows a weakness in that there's too many people that can't/won't/don't vote. And the way to overcome that weakness???