We're not we're not fighting the military, we're not trying to secede for
the United States, if we do then we're losing all the progress we're actually
trying to make.
My name's Noah, this is my first day manning the daytime barricade.
I ran the nighttime barricade.
We are not at all really like how people are saying.
We don't stop anyone from coming in, we don't, you know, pat people down,
we just let people come in and just be who they want to be.
So once for you walk through the barricades, as anyone is freely allowed to do,
you'll see an atmosphere of people just walking around.
We're moving in legality and there's a lot of people who want to change the narrative
to something that would make what we're doing illegal.
We are not doing anything illegal, we are protesters and so every day
we have to get up and correct what someone did wrong or tried to establish or
tagged all over the place or the headlines that don't make sense ...
There's so much of that, that it actually deters because then the type
of people who come, reflect a new narrative that's being spread.
So that we have people who are being agitators or aggressors,
or anarchists who want to fuck shit up and that goes against what we're doing or
why we're here, completely.
And we are not going to allow the conditions of people who wanted to detract from our mission
to stop us from getting the equity or the leverage of the rights that we have.
So this is one of the more central areas of the Black Lives Matter movement here in Seattle.
You can see behind me, there's a very large mural
that's now covering the street.
Look around! We see families and children ... a lot of music going on,
there's a lot of live music at night, there's free coffee, there are medical tents,
there is the no Cop Co-op where everything is free.
We are getting supplies from everyday people,
we are getting supplies from people of means,
so it's definitely a movement by the people, for the people.
I'm standing here kind of where everyone is camping,
it's a pretty heavily occupied area
close to maybe 100 tents.
The centre of this is the garden area.
So this is about giving black people ownership of land, allowing them to build their own self-sustainable
communities, build our own economic system.
This one in particular is ... we try to create space for black indigenous people of colour to
come and garden together and just like, you know, create relationship.
2020 has been an interesting year of like creating a lot of situations where
people were kind of forced to rethink how they live their lives and, you know,
we couldn't have asked for a better situation to,
I guess, I think a better time for this movement to occur,
like the ground was ripe.
Right, into the protest area where a lot of people are hanging out,
waiting for the events of the night to get started ...
Chaz/Chop is not Coachella.
There's still a lot of work to be done and there's still a lot of things
that still need to happen
before we just start lounging around and start relaxing.
I put this event on specifically because I wanted to touch on that but also
make sure that we're highlighting black and indigenous people of colour voices.
... give something to your spirit, you know, not your ears,
not what you hear with,
but what you feel with.
Now there's been a lot of talk about this place.
They said we are out here to party, nothing could be further from the truth!
We are out here to come and rejuvenate
and network and build as people to come and do something better.
We are proving that right here in Seattle the world can change.