Scott Warren and Mike Jones were the visiting from St. Louis when protests began in Atlanta Friday.
Monday morning, they took a trip to the Center for Civil and Human rights downtown for a keepsake as they returned home. Warren saw the well-publicized police shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile in suburban Minneapolis and immediately remembered Michael Brown, who died in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014 after being shot by a police officer. The three dead men were black. The police accused in their shootings were not.
Warren, who is white, said he wishes there was more understanding about why the Black Lives Matter movement has taken shape. He admits he hasn’t always understood it himself.
“It’s been an evolving belief,” said Warren, a teacher. “At first, I was like ‘don’t all lives matter?’ But you have to look at it through a different context. It doesn’t mean just black lives matter.”
See why many are turning to the center with questions at this time of unrest in the streets.
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