Volunteers Come Together To Clean Up Sacramento After Protests
By Marilyn Nelson on May 31, 2020
After a night of protesting the death George Floyd, an unarmed black man in Minneapolis, things turned ugly. Dozens of protesters began to smash their way through Downtown Sacramento.
A trail of smashed windows and graffiti was left behind by protesters from the Tower Bridge to 26th Street, according to The Sacramento Bee. But by 12:30 a.m. a tweet went out from Zayn Silmi, the founder of The People of Sacramento.
“TOMORROW! WE WILL CLEAN THE CITY. SACRAMENTO. WE must come together to help our local businesses,” the tweet said.
The call for unity spread across social media. Several who participated in the protest during the day on Saturday, but left before it turned destructive, returned Sunday morning to help clean up.
As morning broke, business owners arrived to asses the damage. By noon, hundreds of Good Samaritans met downtown with brooms, garbage bags and cleanser to begin the process of cleaning up broken glass, boarding up windows and scrubbing graffiti from buildings.
“Macy’s is devastated. It’s wiped out.” Michael Ault, head of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership business association told the Bee. Glass display cases were shattered and the sprinklers went off after looters lit a fire inside the store.
Frank Fats, BevMO, CVS pharmacy, Sharif Jewlers, Eyes on J, Kicx Unlimited, Mike’s Camera, See’s Candy, as well as many other business suffered damage during the protest.
While many of the business owners are sympathetic to the cause, they are overwhelmed by the loss of their livelihood.
