By SALEEN MARTIN, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)
Raymond Brothers spent Friday night standing side-by-side with Black Lives Matter 757 supporters in downtown Norfolk, protesting in response to the death of George Floyd. Saturday afternoon, Brothers did it again. He and hundreds of supporters gathered about 1 p.m. at the Police Operations Center in Norfolk on E. Virginia Beach Boulevard.
By AMY TRENT, News & Advance (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Protesters in Lynchburg peacefully marched through the streets of downtown Lynchburg on Saturday morning, walking from Lynchburg Community Market up the stairs of Monument Terrace to the front steps of the Lynchburg Police Department. About 100 protesters waved “Black Lives Matter” signs and chanted to bring attention to the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis early last week.
By BRYAN MCKENZIE, Daily Progress (Metered Paywall - 25 articles a month)
Sad and angry, sick and tired, hundreds of people fueled by the deaths of African Americans across the country at the hands of police, marched on the Charlottesville Police Department Saturday on foot and in cars. Some carried signs. Some pushed baby carriages. Nearly all wore face masks as they took up four blocks of downtown Charlottesville, lining East Market Street from Ninth to Fifth Streets Northeast while drivers slowly cruised the street with signs on their cars, their hazard lights flashing and horns blowing.
By JESSICA NOLTE AND MATT JONES, Daily Press (Metered Paywall - 1 article a month)
Protesters and police officers faced off on West Mercury Boulevard for nearly four hours Friday night into Saturday morning. The standoff — with more than two dozen police officers in riot gear and dozens of protesters — shut down the roadway near Power Plant Parkway. “That could have been your son!” a protester yelled at a black police officer standing in riot gear.
By PATRICK HITE, News Leader (Metered Paywall - 3 to 4 articles a month)
George Hunter is one of the founders of the Shenandoah Valley Juneteenth celebration held annually at Montgomery Hall Park. The event is a celebration of the end of slavery, but Hunter said too many black people in the United States today don't feel like they're truly free. "It feels like we're still in bondage," the Fishersville man said Saturday night about the black experience in America.
By IAN MUNRO, Daily News Record (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)
On Friday evening, over 300 people gathered in Harrisonburg’s Court Square for a peaceful protest against police brutality in the wake of an African American’s death related to conduct by law enforcement....The event was organized by Stan Maclin, head of the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center, who led the evening, to a crowd of people, almost all of them wearing masks. Many carried signs. “We’re going to have to learn how to work together and quit harboring hatred in our hearts,” Maclin said to the crowd.
By CASEY FABRIS, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
Nationwide protests sparked by the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of police in Minneapolis reached Roanoke on Saturday. Following a rally at Washington Park organized by the local Black Lives Matter chapter, hundreds of demonstrators marched toward the police station on Campbell Avenue. Police set up barricades along the street, although the crowd managed to inch closer to the department’s offices. It was unclear if police allowed protesters to progress or if they pushed their way through.
By CALEB AYERS, Danville Register & Bee
After the killing of an African American man this week in Minneapolis evoked riots that rocked cities across the nation, Hampton Wilkins, president of Wilkins & Co. Realtors in Danville, sent his longtime friend Danville Mayor Alonzo Jones a text message about how he wants to help the community unite and move forward. “I have an idea for you and me to make a statement to the citizens of Danville,” he wrote in a text he shared with the Register & Bee. “It is about our special relationship, an old white man and our black mayor standing together side-by-side, an example of how things should be.”
By A.J. NWOKO, WWBT
In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, violent protests like those in Minneapolis spilled into the Richmond on Broad Street. The protests which started off with peaceful marching without warning transitioned to acts of vandalism and destruction to local business, property. By morning the smoking remains of a GRTC pulse bus drew in crowds of onlookers who were at a loss for words “It’s not fair, it’s not fair if you feel sympathy for someone this is not the way you react,” Moe Armin said.
By MATTHEW FULTZ, WTVR
Hundreds of protesters marched down Broad Street in Richmond for a second night to protest George Floyd's death and displays of police brutality towards African Americans across the country. That protest, which started peacefully, once again turned destructive when windows were smashed at a bank and stores, dumpsters and trash cans were set on fire and Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, along with buildings and other objects, were tagged with spray paint.
By STAFF REPORT, Prince William Times
After angrily confronting police officers during a protest in Manassas Saturday night, Del. Lee Carter appeared to have been sprayed by some kind of chemical agent by police. Meanwhile, at least two state police officers were struck by thrown objects, including a brick and a rock, during the protest, according to Virginia State Police.
