Dozens of youth protesters descended on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home Louisville Friday morning armed with bullhorns and banners to disrupt the Kentucky Republican’s sleep in order to call for justice for Breonna Taylor and for new leadership.
“I don’t think, especially with our generation, that we’ve ever had this chance to take over our future,” 23-year-old Bowling Green for Peace organizer Derik Overstreet told the Courier Journal. “And it’s really important that this doesn’t turn into a summer trend. It’s really important that this doesn’t fade away.”
BREAKING: It’s 6am and we are live at Mitch McConnell’s house on #Juneteenth demanding justice for #BreonnaTaylor and for all of us.
Every single problem in our country, Mitch McConnell stands in the way of solving.
Wake up, or get ready to get voted out. #WakeUpMitch pic.twitter.com/vyS0YOUS6O
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) June 19, 2020
Demonstrators arrived at McConnell’s home in the upscale Cherokee Road area of the Highlands district in Louisville just before 6am.
No justice, no sleep Mitch.
You let our economy tumble into free-fall, our people be gunned down in the streets by killer cops, & our planet be ravaged by your oil CEO friends.
This #Juneteenth , we’re wide awake.
In November when we vote you out, maybe you’ll wake up, too. pic.twitter.com/M6sRiNbFDu
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) June 19, 2020
Carrying signs calling for the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor in the city during a no-knock raid in March to be arrested, the protesters made commotion and delivered speeches outside of the majority leader’s home.
Local Sunrise Movement organizer Maxwell Farrar, 29, said that the demonstration was aimed not only at calling attention to the problems but also the solutions faced by the public in an age of police brutality and racism, the coronavirus pandemic, and economic and climate crisis.
“We’re not here to just complain on the internet,” said Farrar. “We’re here to get the solutions we need. We know, from the hood to the holler, Kentuckians know we need change right now.”
It was unclear at press time whether McConnell was at home at the time of the demonstration.
Sunrise Movement on Twitter called on Kentuckians to support progressive state legislator Charles Booker in the state’s primary on June 23 to defeat McConnell in the general election set for November.
“We’ve got four days to make him the Democratic nominee,” the group tweeted.
Angry, shocked, overwhelmed? Take action: Support independent media.
We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
As we undertake this life-sustaining work, we appeal for your support. We have 6 days left in our fundraiser: Please, if you find value in what we do, join our community of sustainers by making a monthly or one-time gift.