21 Arrested During Nashville Poor People's Campaign March

NASHVILLE, TN -- A nonviolent protest Monday at Legislative Plaza ended with 21 arrests after marchers allegedly blocked a road on their way to the Justice A.A. Birch Building.

In the second of a six-week series of marches tied to the Poor People's Campaign, which says it is carrying on the legacy of a Civil Rights Era movement of the same name, activists said they were highlighting the connections between systemic racism, poverty and incarceration. As they marched from the Capitol down Charlotte towards Fifth Avenue, Metro Police on bicycles formed a barrier to keep the march from heading on to James Robertson Parkway and officers said anyone who did not get on the sidewalk would be arrested.

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Twenty-one protestors, bound together by chains, remained on the road and intended to surround the Birch Building, but were, instead, promptly arrested and charged with obstructing a passageway. One was also cited for resisting arrest.

MNPD spokesman Don Aaron, alluding to last week's march during which police allowed the protest to continue on roadways, said that the department's tolerance only goes so far.

"This group had the ability to disseminate its message last Monday, and they are free to continue to disseminate their message in a lawful manner, but will not be permitted to block the free passageway of their fellow citizens," Aaron said. "We believe in people being able to express themselves, and we try to be tolerant, but tolerance does have its limits. And today as they were marching down the middle of the street heading toward major roadways during the end of the business day, that limit was reached."

As protests have increased nationwide in the last several years, Metro Police have largely remained hands-off, assisting with traffic control when marches get into the street and rarely making arrests. In the wave of Black Lives Matter marches following the 2014 shooting of a black teenager by a Ferguson, Mo. police officer, protestors were served hot chocolate and coffee by police officials and no one was arrested, even after marching on to Interstate 24.

Of those arrested Monday, eight were from Nashville. Six of the remaining 13 were from Memphis and four from Chattanooga. One person each from Cordova, Tenn., Cleveland, Tenn., and Ringold, Ga. were also arrested.

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