Sunday night’s protest is being called the most peaceful night of demonstrations since the news of Daniel Prude's death and investigation last Wednesday. The barrier of elders between protesters and police is being credited as the reason for that peace, but activists said elders have been there since the beginning.

What You Need To Know

  • Melanie Funchess and Ashley Gantt say the way Sunday's protests were are how protesters have wanted them the last few nights
  • Gantt calls the police's lack of force Sunday “optics”
  • Both question the elders' safety while protesting during a pandemic
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Melanie Funchess is a member of the Greater Rochester Black Agenda Group. She says she is also considered a "baby" elder in the Black community.

Funchess said in the Black community, they know who the elders are, and they are highly honored people in the community.

“When the call was made for elders, the elders knew who they were,” said Funchess. “It’s a title that was given to you, you do not give it to yourself.”

She is one of the elders who has been at every protest since the news of Daniel Prude's death.

"What you saw last night is what we've been trying to do every night,” said Funchess. “The only thing different last night was they didn't shoot us."

She is one of the elders who has been at every protest since the news of Daniel Prude's death.

Funchess said it should not have been put on the elders to get the police to be peaceful. It should have been on Mayor Lovely Warren and Police Chief La’Ron Singletary to make the call from the beginning.

"When the power existed just to make a call and have the police do what they did last night, we did not need the elders to stand there for that to happen,” said Funchess. “We needed our leadership to stand and say, ‘stop.’ "

To people like Ashley Gantt, an organizer with Free the People ROC, Funchess is known as "Mama Mel.” Funchess and Gantt said that Sunday’s peaceful protest with dancing and singing was beautiful. However, elders tried being a buffer on Saturday too and were still tear-gassed. Funchess and Gantt said elders Shirley and Jim Thompson were the first ones to come up with the idea of the buffer and organized it to start Saturday.

"The police stood down,” Gantt said when talking about Sunday’s protest. “We weren't met with aggression from the police and tear-gassed and dogs and bullets once we got downtown, and for the last four nights we have been met with tear gas and pepper bullets. It was 2,000 people on a bridge on Saturday night and the police deployed tear gas and pepper bullets on a bridge. People had nowhere to go."

Gantt said on Sunday though, the nation wanted to see what would happen with the elders as a buffer after it was announced by Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren and Police Chief La'Ron Singletary on Sunday that they would be there.

"I think it was optics,” said Gantt. “I think no one while the entire world was watching, the police don't want to be seen as someone tear-gassing and shooting rubber bullets at elders.”

Funchess said that putting this type of pressure on the elders is dangerous during this time of the coronavirus.

"It's calling people out in the midst of a global pandemic,” said Funchess. “Knowing that with racism being a public health crisis, knowing that African Americans are disproportionately affected by COVID and seniors are disproportionately affected by COVID, we get people who have a double whammy and we're telling them to stand as a barrier to protect us from us?”

Gantt said activists plan to protest until their demands are met. Funchess said the elders will continue to be there too, to help in more ways than being a buffer, such as providing food, water, and support like they've been doing.