Dani was sitting at home, scanning social media when she came across a post about a march for George Floyd on May 31, 2020. They had a police escort starting in Reynoldsburg, Whitehall and ending in Columbus.

I grabbed my camera bag and jumped into the car. By the time I caught up to the march, it had progressed to 46 people and made it from Rose Hill road in Reynoldsburg to just east of Main Street and Hamilton Road.

I parked the car and joined the marchers. The sound of the cars honking was constantly and loud, people showing their support.

The marchers were peaceful, marching in the far right hand lane heading west. Police escorts stopped traffic at the lights and ensured safety in crossing the intersections.

So, the above is the factual, non editorial portion of the article. From here on out, this is our personal opinion here of the staff of VisualOhio. If that doesn’t interest you and you only wish to see the pictures – scroll on to the picture section below.

Hate has no place. Period. An attack on any of our civil liberties is an attack on all of our civil liberties. African-Americans have been the target of profiling, hate, discrimination, racism and governmental brutality for decades.

Just because African Americans are the subject of the protests and marches today, doesn’t mean that another group may not be the one in the future. Right now, the African American of 2020 are the ones with the courage to stand up and point out the inequity. It is them today – it could be any one of us or all of us in the future. They have shown us the way, now WE ALL must support the cause and be a solid, unified front.

While government is a necessity, the United States government, by its founding, should be a system that is given power by the consent of the governed. It should not and cannot have the authority to destroy a whole group of people. How many times are we going to allow for history to repeat itself?

George Floyd was considered as less than, an afterthought. NO HUMAN BEING IS AN AFTERTHOUGHT. No human being deserves to be killed on the street by someone that took a vow to ‘serve and protect’.

We must take positive, peaceful and lawful actions to make change. There are a lot of civil servants that are great at their job. They love the communities and the people in those communities. There are also those that abuse the power they are given. There have to be better systems in place to take corrupt civil servants from their positions before they harm those they are supposed to be protecting. If you look at the Minnesota officer involved in the George Floyd incident – there were more than enough strikes against that person to know they should not have been on active duty and should have been removed from their position.

The brotherhood of loving one another should be above all this. We are all Americans at the end of the day and our brother/sister is a fellow American.

No more can we sit back and stay silent about the blatant inequality because it may not directly affect you at the moment. Really, if this isn’t affecting you – why not? It should.

George Floyd was a son, and father, a husband, and best friend. How callous would it be to not feel affected by those facts coupled with what we know happened to him? We believe that we are all connected, all family…then this IS about you! It is about taking the steps to change the systems that are failing us and making them better. Making sure that they are so well done that we never have to have another George Floyd incident again. To make sure that it is not your father, mother, sister, brother, spouse or friend that is killed. There have already been too many. One is too many.

No more senseless killing of people. It must stop. We, the American people must not only demand that change occur, but help to draft and enact what that change looks like and ends up being. Remember – in America – the government is OURS – THE PEOPLE’S. We the people are not the serfs of the government. It has been that way for far too long in this country. It is time to turn the tide back to what America should be.