About 100 people join NAACP protest outside Las Vegas City Hall
About 100 people stood outside Las Vegas City Hall on Wednesday as a City Council meeting took place inside, with NAACP demonstrators calling out what they said was the “reckless behavior” of council members.
The Las Vegas chapter of the NAACP organized the protest for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, 30 minutes before the start of the meeting, to address recent comments from three City Council members.
Some people standing outside as organizers addressed the crowd appeared to be waiting for their chance to be called into the building to speak during the public comment period.
The rally was organized to “address the reckless behavior” of Councilwoman Victoria Seaman and Councilman Stavros Anthony, both of whom expressed support for a Blue Lives Matter protest that since has been canceled, according to the NAACP chapter’s website.
“The reckless comments and behavior” of Councilwoman Michele Fiore also were a target of the protest, the website said. The NAACP had called for Fiore to step down from her role as mayor pro tem, which she did Tuesday after coming under fire for “racially charged” remarks she is said to have made at the Clark County Republican Party convention June 6.
Inside the council chambers, much of the two-hour period of public comment was targeted toward issues of racism, division and Fiore, who walked out of the meeting as she was being criticized for her past.
A speaker broached Fiore’s reference to a colleague as “colored” while in the state Assembly and her association with controversial rancher Cliven Bundy.
Mayor Carolyn Goodman defended Fiore’s departure as “her prerogative,” noting that any council member could take a recess during the lengthy meeting if at least four lawmakers remained behind. But Fiore, who also had supporters, did not return.
Speakers had a minute to address the council. More than 50 online comments and emails were read into the record afterward.
Controversial remarks
While a recording of Fiore’s remarks at the county GOP convention has yet to surface, Councilman Cedric Crear described in a letter to Goodman last week what witnesses have reported Fiore said in opposition to affirmative action: “I am a white woman, and I should not lose my job because of their black asses.”
NAACP Las Vegas President Roxann McCoy said before the council meeting that although Fiore gave up her title, and the Blue Lives Matter protest was canceled, she still wanted to publicly call into question the council members’ decisions.
She said the Blue Lives Matter protest, which had been organized by conservative radio host and former Las Vegas Review-Journal freelance columnist Wayne Allyn Root to support police officers, was particularly divisive and drew attention away from anti-racism movements.
“Right now, this is about black lives,” McCoy said. “I think they were purposefully pitting blue lives against black lives.”
In a letter sent to the City Council before the Blue Lives Matter rally was set to be held June 13, McCoy said Fiore, Seaman and Anthony “do not care to understand Black citizens of Las Vegas and the injustices we constantly endure.”
“The NAACP’s ask at this time is for City Council members to remove themselves as hosts of this demonstration and work with us on behalf of the community instead of inciting violence and further putting our community members’ lives in danger,” the letter read.
On June 8, the Metropolitan Police Department announced that it was not part of the rally and that the department “did not authorize permission to the organizers to use the LVMPD badge.”
‘I will be out here’
Before Wednesday’s meeting started, organizers held a news conference in front of City Hall. Jameelah Lewis, a 24-year-old activist with a UNLV Black Lives Matter group, said she was “slammed to the ground” when police arrested her during a protest on May 29.
“When the ex-mayor pro tem said that she wanted to have a rally uplifting Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, it was really dismissive of our experience for those of us who have been protesting on the streets for the past few weeks,” Lewis told the group.
Elaine Smith, 62, came to the demonstration on Wednesday. She paused briefly to pose for a picture with a boy from her Sunday school class, both holding up their fists while Smith showed off a sign reading, “In the End We Will Remember Not the Words of Our Enemies but the Silence of Our Friends.”
Smith said she is a speech and language pathologist and has worked in education for 36 years. She said she wants to speak out so that her students can have better lives.
“If I have to be out here till I’m 92, I will be out here,” she said.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_nebwerg on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Shea Johnson contributed to this report.