Editor’s Note: The Collegian updated this article on June 4 to correct a fact error. It originally listed Jo Jo Bailey as a Windsor resident, not a Fort Collins resident.
Community walks in the springtime are common occurrences. Walks for cancer, for holidays or just for fun. Now, there are walks for solidarity too.
Hundreds gathered Sunday afternoon at the Fort Collins City Park for a walk of solidarity with the family of George Floyd, a Black man who died at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer May 25.
“The walk felt right for us,” said Melissa Lozano Davis, who co-organized the walk with friend Missy Splittgerber. “When we were talking earlier this week, we were feeling really frozen. You know, the body’s response, we go fight, flight, freeze, and we could feel ourselves going into freeze, so walking was really important to move our bodies.”
Lozano Davis and Splittgerber planned to walk at least one lap around Sheldon Lake, but said that participants were welcome to walk as little or much as they desired. However, a downpour started at around 4:30 p.m., just as the crowd finished the first lap, and many people dispersed.
We see it more as a swirl. It’s not a circle, it doesn’t end. This is something that we will start this walk all together, and then we will continue it in our own homes and communities.” -Melissa Lozano Davis, co-organizer
Fort Collins resident Jo Jo Bailey brought with her a sign that read, “I am a mama and I rise with all mamas.”
“We all feel heavy, and we all want to do something,” Bailey said. “I want to better educate myself, I want to pay attention and possibly go to more peaceful demonstrations, and I just want to pay attention.”
Before starting the walk, Splittgerber read from the poem “V’ahavta” by Aurora Levins Morales, to, as Lozano Davis put it, set the tone for the walk and allow people to center themselves before walking.
“We want this to be an honoring of the lives that have been lost, first and foremost,” Splittgerber said in a video posted to the Facebook event page. “We stand in honor of them, we stand in solidarity with their families. That’s the beauty of joining together, not just with our families, but with our community family, and saying ‘We stand with you, and we grieve with you, and now we walk to change so that this doesn’t happen to more families.’”
Lozano Davis described the walk as “embodied activism.”
“Walking is symbolic of ‘we are walking towards change and justice,’” Lozano Davis said. “We’re not standing still, we’re walking. We see it more as a swirl. It’s not a circle, it doesn’t end. This is something that we will start this walk all together, and then we will continue it in our own homes and communities.”
Serena Bettis can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @serenaroseb.
