MELKSHAM’S Black Lives Matter protest, held in the Market Place earlier this month, has made international news.
As protests in support of the movement were held across the globe, The Economist, an international weekly newspaper, reported on protests held in Amsterdam, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Paris, São Paulo, – and Melksham.
The Economist reported, “Even where police brutality is rarer, attention has turned to domestic racism. In Melksham, a small town in England, 120 people gathered on June 7th to protest against it. Some 97% of the town’s inhabitants are white. It has not seen a major protest since woollen-mill workers rioted in 1802.
“White privilege doesn’t mean your life hasn’t been hard,” Botan Williams, the event’s 15-year-old organiser, told the crowd, “it just means your skin colour isn’t one of the things making it harder.””
The recent wave of Black Lives Matter protests were sparked by the death of 46-year-old black man George Floyd, who was killed in police custody last month in Minneapolis, USA. The protests have highlighted how police treat black people and raised awareness about racism and inequality in societies all over the world.
