Part One: The Protests

October 23, 2020

Raneem Hamad wasn’t surprised by the tear gas. 

“I don’t think we’re ever going to forget that night. A lot of people were commenting on how it was a war zone and they couldn’t believe that this happened to us here,” Hamad, a 2017 West High graduate said. “Law enforcement in Iowa City are agents of this imperial state that we live in. People were just surprised that, for the first time ever, their privilege didn’t have any terms of preventing them from experiencing this type of violence, but BIPOC in this country have always been experiencing violence at much greater rates.”

On June 4, as Black Lives Matter Protestors approached I-80, Iowa City Police used flash bangs and tear gas to turn them away. 

“Something that really stayed with me was the police brutality that we experienced, even as we were literally protesting police brutality, to our city officials,” Hamad said.

Something that really stayed with me was the police brutality that we experienced, even as we were literally protesting police brutality, to our city officials.

— Reneem Hamad

Hamad is one of the Iowa Freedom Riders organizers, a part of the movement that organized Black Lives Matter protests throughout the summer in Iowa City. Their mission is to work towards full police and prison abolition.

 Protests, in many different forms, erupted around the world in late May after a Black man named George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, while being arrested for a forged dollar bill in Minneapolis. A video of Chauvin placing his knee on Floyd’s neck while Floyd repeatedly said “I can’t breath,” went viral the following day. 

“George Floyd definitely disturbed me but I feel like, for a lot of people, that was their eye opening moment, but it’s the stuff I’ve seen before,” Sophia Lusala ‘22, one of the IFR organizers who attends City High said.

Some protests had hundreds of people show up, many who were non Black allies. Hamad enjoyed seeing how quickly the community mobilized and how energized all of the protesters were.

“Folks were not giving up. We were protesting like every single day for almost a whole month,” Hamad said. “Seeing everyone come out in solidarity and everyone just making sure that their voice was there and was heard and that they weren’t just posting on Instagram, but actually physically participating in the movement in of itself was just really beautiful to see.”

The night following the first tear gassing, Iowa Freedom Riders saw an increase in the number of protesters attending events. 

“As soon as the protest got violent is when I had my pivotal moment this really shows that people are gonna back down when it’s needed the most.” Lusala said.

While the protestors gained community support, they also faced push back from Iowa City Law Enforcement. Hamad described how Black people, especially Black women, were targeted by the police. 

“Black women who were organizing everything were followed home by police officers and followed across town. I was surveyed in my home, there was a cop car sitting outside of my home,” Hamad said. “There has been a lot of shared trauma from what has happened just in the sense of the targeting that we’ve experienced from law enforcement in our own community, a community that claims that at the end of the day is trying to hold everyone accountable and trying to keep everyone safe.”

Lusala shares that it is not uncommon for organizers to be closely monitored by police outside of the protests.

“The other frustrating thing is that when we’re out there, sometimes our faces are shown, cops know our names, they’ve tagged our phones, they have our license plates,” Lusala explained. “I can’t even drive my own car downtown without the possibility of me being followed.”

Not only were protestors tear gassed, but some were arrested. One of the organizers, Mazin Mohamedali, was arrested on six charges once the protests started. When Mohamedali was arrested, Hamad felt powerless. 

“You’re sitting here demanding that your rights be respected yet the same ones you’re asking to respect you are sitting there treating you like animals. You can’t let it get to you, to a certain extent, because you only have so much mental capacity as an organizer, to be honest.You take those experiences and let them fuel you in a good way in terms of motivating you to push for change,” Hamad said.

The other frustrating thing is that when we’re out there, sometimes our faces are shown, cops know our names, they’ve tagged our phones, they have our license plates. I can’t even drive my own car downtown without the possibility of me being followed.

— Sophia Lusala

The majority of the charges against Mohamedali were dropped after community backlash except for a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct due to obstructing a street or highway without authority from the State or local officials. Mohamedali pleaded guilty to this charge.

“It just gave me more and more motivation to fight for what I’m fighting for because while folks are sitting there saying, ‘Well the police don’t do this in my neighborhood,’ I’m literally experiencing the police brutality we’re talking about on the streets of downtown,” Hamad said.

While the protesters experienced violence from the police, they also experienced violence from civilians who were against the cause. On two separate occasions, white men in trucks drove through the crowd of protesters. 

“The first night the man who [drove into the crowd] got arrested. IFR came out with the statement about abolition. When we think of abolition and transformative justice, we’re not just thinking about it for ourselves as marginalized people, but for all members of our community. That’s something that honestly surprised a lot of people because a lot of people wanted us to be retaliatory and expect us to be retaliatory,” Hamad said.

Hamad wants people to focus on educating themselves about abolition and transformative justice because she believes that that is one of the best ways to be involved with the movement.  

“The call to action is really educating yourself,” Hamad said. “Read up on abolition and transformative justice and figure out ways to implement that in your daily life. We can practice abolition in our day to day lives and push our community, at the end of the day, to think about abolition.”

Protests died down in the later weeks of June, with a few sporadic protests happening afterwards. Now, the Iowa Freedom Riders are looking mainly towards change in policy with the Iowa City Council and the district school board. 

The Iowa Freedom Riders meeting with the school board was held on August 18.

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