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.
Join us in defending the truth before it’s too late
The future of independent journalism is uncertain, and the consequences of losing it are too grave to ignore. To ensure Truthout remains safe, strong, and free, we need to raise $50,000 in the next 10 days. Every dollar raised goes directly toward the costs of producing news you can trust.
Please give what you can — because by supporting us with a tax-deductible donation, you’re not just preserving a source of news, you’re helping to safeguard what’s left of our democracy.