Joshua Vissers/Daily Mining Gazette A number of marchers appeared to be younger than past protests, with several young parents bringing their young children with during Wednesday’s march in downtown Houghton.

HOUGHTON — On Wednesday, police estimated upwards of 1,000 people showed up on the back parking decks of Houghton to join in a solidarity march for George Floyd and American people of color. Blacks, whites, Asians, Jews, pastors, priests, professors and medical doctors joined together.

Cars honked, some had posters on their windows, small business owners stood out on the sidewalks. Local police were on-hand to keep everything clean and the protesters behaved themselves during the march. Traffic was no more blocked up than if the Ranger III would have crossed under the bridge.

Downtown remained unscathed. Nothing was broken. Nothing was looted, and with the exception of demonstrators coring to the other side of the bridge, everyone stayed on the sidewalks. A Jimmy John’s employee walked the sidewalk handing out sandwiches. A car was handing out bottles of water.

The demonstration paused with people on both sides of the lift bridge, displaying home-made sign and shouting “No justice, no peace” and “I can’t breathe,” and “justice for George Floyd.” Plenty of noise was made, but there was no broken glass, no turning over of vehicles, no fires and no gunshots from 1 to 2 p.m. while the initial demonstration took place.

To give some context to race marches, the Library of Congress’s article on Emmitt Till says Till’s murder in Mississippi brought national attention to racial violence and injustice allowed to prevail in the country. His murderers, who beat him to death and dumped his body into the Tallahatchie River were never sentenced. Till’s mother held an open-casket funeral for Emmitt so the nation could see what racism looked like.

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s essay, “Creative Protest,” Dr. King explains the need for peaceful protests to college students in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“The dynamic idea whose time has come today is the quest for freedom and human dignity,” Dr. King said. “Men are tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. They are tired of being plunged into the abyss of exploitation where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair.”

Dr. King continued, praising the students for their efforts.

“You students of North Carolina have captured this dynamic idea in a marvelous manner,” he said. “You have taken the undying and passionate yearning for freedom and filtered it in your own soul and fashioned it into a creative protest that is destined to be one of the glowing epics of our time.”

The importance of peaceful protest in an era of directed hate is not lost on Dr. King, and he imparted that vision on the students.

“You have taken hold of the tradition of resolute non-violent resistance and you are carrying it forward to the end of bringing all of us closer to the day of full freedom,” he said.

According to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, King reflected often on his understanding of non-violence.

“True pacifism, nonviolent resistance is a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love,” King said, when speaking on non-violence.

From the death of Till in 1955 to protests for justice for Floyd, the need for peaceful protests remains. Dr. King’s non-violent methods were a combination of his theology training and the peaceful resistance of Mahatma Gandhi, who rose against the British oppression of India.

The people of the Copper Country peacefully made their voices heard for violence and oppression to end.