< Black Protest Leaders To White Allies: 'It's Our Turn To Lead Our Own Fight'

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

The racial justice movement kicked off by the death of George Floyd is now nearly four months on, and it continues. Within that movement, activists are debating who should get to lead. Many Black activists are asking - in some cases demanding - that white supporters follow their leadership and strategy. And as NPR's Brian Mann reports, some Black leaders are challenging white protesters to see the fight through long past this current moment.

BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: On a street in Rochester, N.Y., earlier this month, police in body armor pressed forward, firing pepper balls at demonstrators. One of the protest's Black leaders shouted orders, directing white marchers to the front.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #1: You're a white person; you're getting to the perimeter. You're putting your body on the [expletive] line right now. Thank you.

MANN: This dynamic is happening on streets across the U.S. Protests are diverse. But in many cities, the leadership is overwhelmingly Black. Benjamin O'Keefe is a Black political organizer in Brooklyn, where protests have continued since early June. He says it's good far more white people are embracing the Black Lives Matter movement, but it's also meant a complicated tension with white allies who he says often haven't questioned their own attitudes about race.

BENJAMIN O'KEEFE: We exist in white supremacy culture in which even people who want to do good do not want to be necessarily led by a Black person.

MANN: Black leaders are pushing ideas about criminal justice reform that once seemed far outside the political mainstream, like defunding police and abolishing prisons. O'Keefe says it's unclear whether white supporters are committed to that kind of change.

O'KEEFE: Are you really in this? Do you really understand the stakes? Are you here for an Instagram picture, or are you here because you understand that when I walk outside every day, I have a much higher risk of not returning home because of the color of my skin?

MANN: Studies show Black Americans are roughly three times more likely to be killed during an encounter with police compared with white people. Black adults are also five times more likely to say they've been unfairly stopped by police because of their race. This is an experience white demonstrators don't share. So across the country, many Black organizers are addressing this tension, this different experience, head-on.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

CHRISTOPHER COLES: White folks, allies, accomplices, I'm talking to y'all.

MANN: Christopher Coles, an activist in Rochester, talked to marchers through a bullhorn while a police drone hovered overhead.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

COLES: This is not a video game. For some of y'all that come here, you come here because it's an elective. We come here because it's survival.

MANN: Just one block from here, a mentally ill Black man named Daniel Prude was held down by police last March with a spit hood over his head. He asphyxiated and later died. That sparked weeks of demonstrations. Coles voiced a concern you hear a lot among Black leaders - that white allies will march and carry signs and then go back to their lives even if nothing changes to make Black people safer.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

COLES: You get to be an ally one day and just white the next. You get to live and lean on your privilege. But if you got privilege, start [expletive] spending it.

MANN: This tension isn't new. During the civil rights era, Black leaders like Charlie Cobb were often leery of white supporters, questioning their commitment and their willingness to be led.

CHARLIE COBB: We were concerned they would assume responsibilities for things we wanted young Black people to assume.

MANN: Cobb was an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi during the 1960s. He says it worried him when white college students began arriving on buses.

COBB: Such a large number of whites coming down - thought they'd overwhelm the still-fragile roots of the grassroots movement we were trying to build.

MANN: But Cobb says Black leaders then did find ways to lead white activists, making big gains on civil rights. He thinks it's happening again now as white people take to the streets in much larger numbers.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #2: (Chanting) Say his name.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Daniel Prude.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER #2: (Chanting) Say his name.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Daniel Prude.

MANN: Back in Rochester, Kendall Devour is one of thousands of white people across the U.S. who marched this summer for the first time, responding to the deaths of George Floyd, Daniel Prude and others. She says she's learned from Black activists, found ways to fit in.

KENDALL DEVOUR: I just think being a white ally means listening a lot. And sometimes you're going to make mistakes, but you can't get sad and cry about it. You have to just register that there's work to be done.

MANN: This conversation about race is playing out mostly among young people - Black and white - all under huge stress, exhausted and frightened after weeks of confrontation with police. Salome Chimuku, an organizer in Portland, Ore., says it's mostly working.

SALOME CHIMUKU: Whether or not it's always pretty, having these conversations is moving things forward. I think it's going well. The fact that we're still talking about it, the fact that these protests are going past a hundred days shows that it's successful.

MANN: Some cities and state legislatures have responded to these protests with modest police reforms, but many Black organizers say it's not enough. They see this moment as a major reckoning with systemic racism. One test of this movement is whether white supporters will stay with Black activists as they demand more sweeping change.

Brian Mann, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF LOL HAMMOND AND DUNCAN FORBES' "DAYS WITHOUT END")

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