{"id":4704,"date":"2020-08-26T13:17:17","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T17:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=4704"},"modified":"2020-08-26T14:32:35","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T18:32:35","slug":"larry-schultz-on-the-black-lives-matter-rally-in-berkeley-springs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=4704","title":{"rendered":"Larry Schultz on the Black Lives Matter Rally in Berkeley Springs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Larry Schultz, an organizer of the Black Lives Matter rally in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia last Friday, told WRNR\u2019s Eastern Panhandle Talk with Rob Mario and David Welch<\/em> this morning that the reason he helped organize the event was because \u201cwe heard of some troubling racial incidents involving children in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Larry Schultz<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were incidents in the schools and in a public place where people were using the N word toward biracial and African American kids \u2013 including a kid as young as six,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s just never acceptable. A group of us got together and said \u2013 we are going to get out there, talk about these incidents and say \u2013 if you are afraid that nobody cares about you, come and see us.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welch asked Schultz \u2013 were most of the people from the anti-Black Lives Matter event from outside Morgan County?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cMost of them were from inside Morgan County. That\u2019s more of a guess. But it\u2019s not entirely a guess. I did see people I know live in Morgan County in that group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI talked to a number of the different organizers (of the anti-rally) and I myself was personally threatened,\u201d Schultz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How so? Welch asked.\t\t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey threatened to burn my house,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a person whose picture I took. I now have his name. It\u2019s a little difficult because if that case were tried, it\u2019s his word against mine and it wasn\u2019t recorded. But yes, there were people who were threatened. I heard of other threats that were made. I heard from others who were threatened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn that kind of a setting, simply saying to someone \u2013 your days are numbered \u2013 is pretty chilling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welch asked \u2013 \u201cHad you titled this event \u2013 Rally to Support Marginalized Communities \u2013 rather than call it Black Lives Matter \u2013 would you have aroused the same kind of hateful anti-protest event?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, but one of the things I have learned from being an advocate in courts is —\u00a0 the other side doesn\u2019t pick your language,\u201d Schultz, a practicing trial lawyer, said. \u201cYou pick your language. And the reason it\u2019s important to say the words \u2013 black lives matter \u2013 is simply because they do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welch asked \u2013 \u201cLarry, when you hear someone say \u2013 yeah, but all lives matter \u2013 what goes through your head when you hear that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cActually what went through my head came out of my mouth innumerable times. I was proud to be able to say from the podium when I heard all lives matter \u2013 Thanks, because if all lives matter, then black lives matter. You can\u2019t have all lives matter until black lives matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd just look at what happened since the rally. They shot a father of three seven times in the back in Kenosha, Wisconsin because he did not obey their orders to halt \u2013 in front of his children. That\u2019s what it looks like to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schultz said that the speakers at the Friday rally included West Virginia Delegate Sammi Brown, labor organizer Stuart Acuff, and Cathy Kunkel, the Democratic candidate for Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCathy stood up and attempted to speak as they shouted her down,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cBut the first person who got up to speak was an ordained minister who was going to say an invocation. She was shouted down with shouts of \u2018USA.\u2019 We said \u2013 wait a minute. This is a prayer. It didn\u2019t help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mario asked \u2013 did you have any idea ahead of time that this event was going to turn into one side shouting over the other side?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI certainly knew that there was going to have to be a large police presence,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cThe anti-rally people on Facebook made numerous veiled and not so veiled threats of gunfire in a state park in a small town \u2013 in Berkeley Springs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What drives this kind of hatred? Welch asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you look at the economic data since the mid-1970s, you can see that the middle class has been corroded badly,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cThe middle class is smaller than it used to be. That makes people economically afraid. Plus from time to time there are these giant recessions that wipe people out financially. There is a great deal of intentionally caused economic insecurity in the middle class.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen questions of race, culture and skin tone begin to be discussed, one of the things that a factory worker in Milwaukee sees is that if his company is purchased by the right capitalist, they could replace him with someone who would take less money because they are more desperate. And there are politicians who gin up and fan the flames of that sort of insecurity, and so people are afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost of this is fear. I know that it is disrespectful of me to say that the guys with their big AR-15s strapped over their backs are afraid. But many of the threats we got are based upon a fear of the unknown, or an economic insecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mario said that the people who showed up for the anti-rally were probably watching the violence in Portland and elsewhere around the country and said — \u201cyou may not be bringing that to Berkeley Springs or you may –\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t nearly so equivocal about it as you say, Rob,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t saying — you may or you may not be. They were saying — you are bringing that to Berkeley Springs. But the terrorism was already there. And it raised its head.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mario asked — would it have been a big leap for you Larry, as an educated man who works as a volunteer with abusers in relationships, could you really not have seen this being the end result of this rally?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI could have seen this being the end result of that,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cAnd to me — the idea that because they are going to act like terrorists then I am then going to abandon those kids is unacceptable.\u201d
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Larry Schultz, an organizer of the Black Lives Matter rally in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia last Friday, told WRNR\u2019s Eastern Panhandle Talk with Rob Mario and David Welch this morning that the reason he helped organize the event was because … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4704"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4711,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4704\/revisions\/4711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}