“When things go wrong, don’t go with them.“

Foreign destinations are not always a necessary backdrop for major new experiences. In fact, the most phenomenal trip this gal made this year was actually a local pursuit: my recent trek to South West London to attend a Black Lives Matter (BLM) rally, a gathering in protest of social injustice and race inequality in the US, the UK and globally. Having never been to a protest before, and being familiar with prevalent media images and narrative of rioting and looting at similar global gatherings, I didn’t know what to expect! Ultimately, it gave so much more than one could have ever hoped for. And for the record, it far surpassed the nervous but glorious thrill of being around a group of people for the first time since lockdown in the UK.

Sense of Brotherhood. As I fell in line with the sea of bodies making their way towards the US Embassy, I quickly realized that no amount of online video or TV viewing could have prepared me for this experience. A massive rush of emotion accosted me upon seeing the staggering amount of white faces and folks from all of the city’s diverse ethnic groups who’d turned up to support the black community. At a time when my emotional tank felt like it had been depleted, somehow it managed to deliver some more tears for the occasion. Cheesy, but true. Once we moved off, a strong feeling of community resonated among us as we marched and chanted in peaceful solidarity.

There are special moments in life that you remember in complete sensory clarity – that day of protest will be one of them for me. 

Gen Z Voices. As one chant dies off, a strong voice suddenly bellows ‘Silence is Violence!’ and the group promptly joins in vigorous chant, our loud voices piercing the curtain of order that hangs imperiously over the city of London. Peering into the crowd, I locate the lead vocalist and would you believe that it is none other than one of the youngest members of the crowd, a petite college-aged female. I glance again to make sure my eyes aren’t deceiving me, nor my ears as there’s no evidence of a bullhorn in her possession. They are not deceived. She instantly gains my admiration and respect. (I don’t know about you but at that age my energy and skills were focused on forming strategic alliances with other note-takers in lecture classes, and scheming with the girls on my dorm floor on how to get into NYC’s hottest clubs.)

What a tremendous role the Gen Z community is playing in the current campaign for social justice. First, many of them are social mobilisation champions and have been spreading awareness of protest efforts across the social platforms most popular for BLM campaigning: Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. On top of this, they are also champions on the ground and are actively showing up and driving participant engagement. Grit when they’re behind the screen, and passion when they’re on the scene!

Video Allyship. At the root of this call for social justice is the black community’s strongest ally to date: video technology. Its leading role in incident surveillance and real-time visual communications has served as the basis for legitimizing and spreading awareness of the problem of police brutality in America. Further to that, harnessing video technology for digital activism, aimed at ramping up global anti-racism education and support, has been its next major play.

The organizers of the protest that I joined also produced a live stream so that folks unable to attend could still be part of the virtual event in London. For those at-home viewers, who knows, perhaps it served as a call to action as it did with me whereby the live YouTube feed of a similar gathering the previous weekend spurred me to join their next event.

As to be expected, the role of video on this journey is fluid and ongoing. Following the protest, we leveraged the powerful social currency yet again. Many attendees shared various short form video content on our social platforms, digitally conveying important visuals of the large mass and diverse representation of supporters, and messaging that ranged from demands to step up and speak up for the black community to decolonising British educational curricula.

And last but not least, there is the personal value of my video clips. These sights and sounds of a historical uprising are already part of a digital album dedicated to preserving the memory of the time I first dipped my toes into the modern day civil rights movement, UK edition, on the first Sunday of June, 2020.

My energy is back and I’m on full throttle, and all credit for that goes to the community of social justice warriors who came out and marched on the streets of central London in solemn unity. I’ll conclude by urging every reader here: if you are able to, get up and Go Protest!