Dueling rallies at City Hall and the Capitol enliven a Saturday

SATURDAY, Sept. 26 — Christians at the Capitol and protesters supporting LGBTQ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement across the street at City Hall brought downtown Lansing to life this afternoon with political activity.

Hundreds of maskless evangelical Christians shouted their support of Trump and his U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, from the Capitol steps and lawn. Using a sound system, they and the Christian music played by a live band could be heard blocks away.

Meanwhile, on the City Hall plaza, about two dozen mask-wearing civil rights protesters used bullhorns to shout “queer Black lives matter” and “Trump out 2020” as well as the names of two prominent victims of police actions, George Floyd of Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor of Louisville, Kentucky.

Their sound overlapped approximately where protesters painted a Black Lives Matter sign on Capitol Avenue two months ago.

The protesters arrived at City Hall about 4 p.m., two hours after they had assembled in front of Target in downtown East Lansing. Their arrival followed by a denunciation of homosexuality by a Black man on the Capitol steps.

The protesters marched down Grand River Avenue and Michigan Avenue. March leader Greg, who declined to provide his full name, said he had organized the event to highlight discrimination faced by LGBTQ members of the Black community.

“I figured, if we’re going to say, ‘Black lives matter,’ we should include all Black lives,” Greg said. “I remember marching and there was a lesbian couple that asked the organizer to say, ‘Queer Black lesbians matter.’ He responded, ‘Well, we don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable.’ To me, you have to include all Black lives, not just the straight ones.”

Prominent chants throughout the duration of the march were “queer Black lives matter” and “trans Black lives matter.” Marchers also shouted the names of Black people who have been killed by the police in 2020.

Nicole Biber attended the march with her daughter to “show solidarity with Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ rights.”

“Those two are often at the forefront in calls for justice,” Biber explained. “I am an indigenous woman; I am a mother and I was raised by two gay men who looked out for our family, which struggled with poverty.”

Biber said she hopes white and straight allies continue to attend demonstrations. “I wrote on my sign, ‘Allies still required,’ very purposefully. It is not the time to hold off on protests. Any time there is an opportunity to stand together, we should do it.”