Somers Solidarity Rally for Black Lives Urges Community to Learn, Act

By Madeline Rosenberg

Hundreds of residents from Somers and surrounding communities gathered in Reis Park Thursday afternoon not to march or chant but to listen. 

The Solidarity Rally for Black Lives created a platform for the town to hear from black speakers, as protests and vigils spring up across the country and throughout Westchester as the nation reels from George Floyd’s murder and long-standing racial inequality. 

Jena Blair, Katie Goldberg and Lucille Lord, 2018 Somers High School graduates, organized the rally to highlight the injustices.

“For the Somers community, I don’t think they needed noise. I think they needed to sit down and listen,” Goldberg said after the rally. “This town has been so divided because the black community is so small that they feel like they can’t even speak up.”

Jena Blair, Katie Goldberg and Lucille Lord, 2018 Somers High School graduates, organized the rally to highlight the injustices.

As demonstrators dressed in black sprawled across the lawn surrounded by Black Lives Matter posters pasted on pavilion walls and trees, the community heard speeches from students, local leaders and educators who voiced their pain as people of color in a predominantly white community. 

Courtney Warren, a Harvey School graduate and a rising sophomore at St. John’s University, took the stage with her siblings Alex and Avery expressing her experiences as a black woman. She said she has often felt alone and silenced and was stereotyped on her sports teams. 

Alex Warren said being the only black girl in her grade at The Gunnery, a private prep school in Connecticut, means being used as a “Q&A machine,” interrogated about her race.

“Systemic racism is instilled in the air that we breathe, the water that we drink,” Avery Warren told a cheering audience. “It poisons our children and our society. It taints the earth and hides the sun.” 

Summer Blair, a 2013 Somers graduate, told the crowd she wondered what her white peers did on Martin Luther King Jr. Day while she and her family watched documentaries about the black struggle, from slavery to civil rights. Her sister, Jena, one of the co-organizers, said when she reported racist incidents to Somers High School administrators when she attended the school, nothing happened, “not even an apology.” 

“If you believe that racism in Westchester County, in Somers, in our schools and in our homes does not exist, then you are sadly mistaken,” Jena Blair said. “So I ask the Somers community today, when is it okay for me and others like me to speak up? It seems to me it is never a good time, but I am tired of being quiet.”  

Racial discrimination surfaced as the three graduates planned the event. Jena Blair said she received death threats from the same peers she sat beside at high school athletic events and musical performances. Backlash from local parents amassed on Facebook, who said the rally threatened the community’s safety during the coronavirus pandemic. 

But Goldberg said some of the same parents participated in a parade days before where people were hugging.    

“Twenty-year-olds should not have to fight adults in our community about racism,” Goldberg said to an applauding audience. “We shouldn’t have to convince others that this is needed. We created this because we have to. We have to take (the) initiative.”

Local leaders echoed the student voices. Irene Wanjiku, of Race Amity of Northern Westchester and Putnam, a local chapter of the group that sponsored the rally, told the audience she “didn’t know how naive she was” when she moved to Somers. But seeing the crowd of mostly white faces gave her hope. 

“The playing field is not level,” she said. “That I see you here gives me so much strength and courage that change is on the way.”

Protestors who attended the more than two-hour event said they felt a responsibility to advocate for change, that justice starts with local demonstrations. 

Lakeland High School senior Mario Mingone attended the rally with some of his track and field teammates. Raising a cardboard sign painted “And Justice for All,” he said that he wanted to set an example for others to follow. Kaylie Gilston, a Somers graduate and University of Delaware student, said she was protesting to amplify marginalized voices.   

“I just feel that as a white person, I can help other black people speak their voices in any way possible, especially peacefully,” Gilston said. “Coming here and showing support is a first step to showing unity and that creates change.”

Jena Blair said attending the rally was a start to creating a more just Somers, calling education a vital next step. The Facebook event page contained links to books, documentaries and TV shows to push community members to educate themselves.

“Education is what we need right now to learn what’s going on, learn from our mistakes and grow,” she said. “Join programs and organizations that have these uncomfortable conversations so we can bring them to our dinner tables.”