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PHOTOS: Lambertville demonstrators cross bridge to New Hope Saturday afternoon

Photo: Steve Chernoski

Hundreds of protestors in support of the Black Lives Matter movement began a peaceful march at 5 p.m. in Lambertville, proceeding up North Union Street to Mary Sheridan Park.

After hearing speeches, demonstrators turned back south toward the New Hope-Lambertville free bridge, where they crossed over to the Pennsylvania side at around 5:45 p.m., and marched down South Main Street in New Hope.

Starting out on North Union and Bridge streets in Lambertville (Photo: Steve Chernoski)

 

Marching up North Union Street (Photo: Steve Chernoski)

Listening to a speech at Mary Sheridan Park (Photo: Reese Keating)

On the bridge to New Hope (Photo: Reese Keating)

Stepping off the bridge into New Hope (Photo: Steve Chernoski)

Marching down South Main Street in New Hope (Photo: Reese Keating)

About the author

Charlie Sahner

“Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." - Einstein

16 Comments

  • When loved ones died during Covid the liberal elites, media, and governors would not let you have a funeral. And they would send armed agents after you if you tried because having a family funeral was tantamount to murder. Now a man has died whose death serves ther political purpose and at last count there have been 3 standing room only funerals each simulcasted on all the major networks

  • How many black people do you see? 1, 2? That’s what gets me about New Hope/Lambertville. They grab onto national events and try to be part of it because they are the entitled bored. I recall 9/11 when many were worried that the bridge would be bombed by Bin Laden. That plane over PA? Why, it was headed for New Hope of course!

  • These comments are getting depressing. I guess even though New Hope has it’s progressive repuatation, we are still part of Pennsyltucky and there’s more than enough small town aging white guys that get antsy when they find themselves fading into irrelevancy.

    The good news is they’re being drowned out by real change being brought on by the youth in this country. The “back in my day” crowd wishing it was still 1953 will fade into background noise and be forgotten, as the small minded older people that don’t keep up with the times always do.

  • Cmon Doc let’s give the racial hypersensitivity and paranoia a rest. I’m so tired of people looking for and finding racism around every corner. We’ve spent a solid week of 24/7 on riot coverage. Then our local paper covers our local protest and our local reader MB comments that it was peaceful…and that makes him a racist. You can’t utter or type the word “looter” (even tho you’re getting it in surround sound by the media) without somebody accusing you of racism

    • How can you be tire of an non EXPERIENCE I’ve never had to look for racism it was introduced to me…the stage was set in the constitution? YOU MISSED MY POINT AS USUAL YOU’LL FLIP THE COMMENT AS RACIST…

      • We were not talking about the constitution but yeah that’ 200 year old doc is racist as hell by today’s standards. I think we were talking about EVERYTHING being racist by the hypersensitive standards TODAY. Black people run much of all local government and don’t forget 8 years of presidency but I guess that doesn’t count. Black people dominate sports, entertainment, and social life. And now you have former criminals like Al Sharpton taking advantage of a tragedy while true leaders like Cornell West are on the sideline

  • I’m a 62 year old white male who comes to New Hope quite often for the beautiful bike trails and great restaurants just want to say that no one has mentioned blue lives many policemen have been killed throughout the country and injured but no one seems to ever mention them just George Floyd if any of you ignorant protesters would read the statistics there is no inequality between black deaths and white deaths by the police Nationwide so let’s have some respect for the men in blue who are protecting you protesting right now disgraceful Behavior 4 our men in blue

  • REALLY..MB..UNLIKE.why don’t you say what’s really behind your comparative urban vs Lilly white community which l love and was an resident back in the late 70’s when New Hope- Lamberville was pure l’m A black male turn 81 this month and can’t begin to under how l can read between the lines of your comment and PLEASE!…I don’t think you’re an racist,l DONOT but your narrative clearly has sublimual undertone that only an mature experience eye can see…your BOLD “UNLIKE” GAVE YOU AWAY JUST APPRECIATING HOW PEACEFUL IT WAS…NOT GRATIFYING…YOU JUST had TO REVEAL YOUR REAL URBAN BIAS THOUGHTS….I’ll leave out what’s synonymous with urban that cutely substituted with looters, Anarchists….???
    PEACE

  • Hoping this doesn’t fizzle out anytime soon. Right now we have the most serious momentum for holding the militarized police state accountable along with POTUS Bunker Boy, the wannabe idiot king.

    I do not have a Facebook because it’s one of the main cesspools that has driven us to where we are today and don’t understand continuing to support Zuckerberg’s business, but I just looked at the New Hope Free Press public page there and noticed even here we have a few local bigots peppering in their comments.

    I’m glad to see the younger generation carrying the torch on this one. My generation made incremental progress, but way too little and way too slowly. It’s going to take the generation of people under 30 coming into their own. Of course there are some backwards looking racists in any generation, but I believe the sheer percentage of them that grew up with multicultural touchstones, and hopefully friends, may finally be large enough that they will push for the changes that my generation failed to deliver.

    It’s crystal clear who is currently placing themselves on the wrong side of history, and they’ll be remembered as the George Wallace’s of our time.

    • Cecil you say, “I’m glad to see the younger generation carrying the torch on this one.” They are young, white kids, bored with nothing to do. It was a nice day and they showed up because it was something different. Believe me, another week or two will pass, summmer plans will kick in and your “torch-bearers” will just talk about this down at the shore over some beers. Tell me specifically, what will change after their march? Before you go leaping to any conclusions, I whole-heartedly believe George Floyd was murdered and that police officer should be charged with FIRST degree murder.

      • First, I’m glad we’re on the same page about George Floyd. We also need to recognize that Floyd’s murder was a tipping point – yes, the protests are about bringing his killers to justice, but we both know it goes way beyond that.

        In the same way that the police raid on the Stonewall Inn was a single event that erupted into an uprising in the name of LGBT rights, Floyd’s murder was a point when enough became enough. It’s great that his murderers are being held accountable, but this happens constantly and it’s time to stop playing whack-a-mole where we just wait for a cop to kill someone, fire or charge them, and move on until the next time without changing anything.

        As for them being “young white kids” – that’s exactly why it’s an important piece of the puzzle. There is a generation of kids of ALL backgrounds that overwhelmingly believe down to their bones that there is systemic racism and inequality in this country, and they will carry that forward as the Boomers die off, replacing the corrupt old systems with something intrinsically fairer and better.

        It’s incredibly important black kids aren’t alone fighting for this – many live it every day – but when those black kids and “bored young” white kids are all in positions to make hiring and firing decisions at businesses, or law enforcement decisions, or electoral decisions, hopefully it will be second nature of them to not perpetuate the corrupt systems that have stubbornly remained in place for too long.

        So while these kids local march is important for those reasons, the marches across the country have accomplished a lot already –

        We’re already starting to see quick action taken against individual cops. Beyond the murderers in Minneapolis, we’ve seen criminal charges filed this week against cops in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Los Angeles, NYC, Atlanta, etc. I guarantee you that one month ago those exact same actions would have resulted in “the officers were put on desk duty while there is an internal investigation”. Today we’re beginning to see assault being called assault and murder being called murder.

        What else specifically?

        Police defunding has begun. Major defunding in Los Angeles announced, Minneapolis city council about to approve it, just this afternoon NYC mayor pledges defunding, etc. Cops should not have budgets that allow them to purchase massive amounts of military style equipment and weapons. Once they have their G.I. Joe toys, there’s too many of them that can’t wait to try them out. It’s great to see tax dollars being shifted to other investments in communities.

        What else has changed specifically?

        Minneapolis has banned chokeholds. California has banned chokeholds. Seattle, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Denver, D.C., and Portland all have proposals on the table this week to ban the use of either tear gas, rubber bullets, or both.

        Next? Hopefully bans on no-knock warrants. And on…and on…and on…

        And all of that in just about 12 days.

        So sure, in our small town these rich white kids don’t have to face the same threats from police that people of color do (regardless of income – we’ve seen enough successful wealthy black people treated poorly lately too), or even many poorer white people. This generation is not selfish enough to only care about themselves, as too many of my generation are.

        It gives me hope to know that as Boomers disappear off the planet, they’re being replaced with something better.

  • This is all very redundant. George Floyd was going to get justice on day one, as proven by the prompt response by the Minnesota prosecutors and Justice Department officials. Did they not get that news? It’s sad these people have been worked up by the selective reporting by the media, and being homebound due to corona virus.

    • Thankfully, some of “these people” had video of the horrific incident. It’s not just about George Floyd, it’s also about all the similar crimes that aren’t caught on camera.

  • What impressed me about this Protest March was the fact that it was totally peaceful UNLIKE many major cities where there are Looters, Anarchists and Arsonists. Anarchists typically stay at the back of the crowd pushing those in front of them into the police resulting in confrontations.

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