Joshua Vissers/Daily Mining Gazette Members of the Houghton Police Department were on hand to help keep Wednesday’s march peaceful.

HOUGHTON — As marchers filled both sides of the Portage Lake Lift Bridge and shouts of “Black Lives Matter” resounded, James Collins lifted his phone in the air to document the scene for friends downstate. 

“I believe that most people are starting to realize that injustice towards one individual American could be injustice towards any American,” Collins said. “Sometimes it’s not a matter of race. Sometimes people get carried away with the power that they have. And they’re able to inflict this type of thing on anybody. We live in a diverse society, and in 2020, it’s time to embrace the diversity.”

Wednesday’s march drew an estimated 1,000 people, according to the Houghton Police Department. 

Shortly before the march started, there were about 200 people on the parking deck behind 5th & Elm — a new location picked to accommodate a larger crowd.

That number swelled even before they reached the Portage Lake Lift Bridge. At its peak, the march filled both sides of the bridge with people carrying signs and shouting slogans like “No justice, no peace” and the names of police brutality victims like George Floyd, whose killing by a Minneapolis officer has sparked protests around the world for more than a week.

“Especially around here, I feel like we don’t have attention on this very often at all,” said Destiny Walstrom of Atlantic Mine. “So it’s great to see everybody come out and notice how many people actually stand.”

Rev. Bob Langseth said the turnout was the largest he could remember for a local protest. 

“it’s not only racism, it’s our capitalism, it’s our sociology, it’s our culture,” he said. “It has to change, like a caterpillar that turns into a butterfly.

“This is a chrysalis moment, and we see it right here,” he said, pointing to the young protesters across the street. 

There are signs the death of Floyd and others before such, such as Eric Garner and Michael Brown, are shifting public opinion. A Monmouth poll this week found 57% of people believed police were more likely to use excessive force if their suspect was black, up from 33% after New York police killed Eric Garner in 2014. 

“I think people are starting to get fed up, and they’re starting to realize there’s a systemic problem and they want to do something about it,” said Tania Levy, a Houghton native who now lives in Brooklyn. 

Sierra Ballard of Laurium marched with family members, including her year-old son Alecc James. A sign above his stroller said “When do I change from cute to scary?”

When she moved to the area 10 years ago as a high school student, Ballard was bullied for being black. Even in the days prior to the march, she was harassed when she posted about the march on Snapchat. 

When she saw the level of community support Wednesday, “I started crying,” said Ballard, who lives in Laurium.

“I’m incredibly happy, because I thought everybody — not everybody, but most people — were closed-minded,” she said. “So I have a totally different view of people.”

In the years since George Zimmerman’s killing of black teen Trayvon Martin drew more attention to implicit bias and the threats faced by black people, Collins said he has seen more people willing to challenge their preconceptions about black people. 

Collins said he did not agree with the looting or burning of local businesses seen in some protests, nor the militarized police response to some protests. For two days before Wednesday’s march, Collins held his own protest outside Hancock City Hall — the first night with Milly’s owner Jonathan Miller, the other by himself. 

Many people, from police officers to strangers, came up to him to take a picture with him or to make sure he was OK. 

“I’m personally alright,” he said. “The state of the nation that I live in is not. it’s as simple as that. You cannot send in military chiefs and the people who are frustrated for injustice committed by individuals or individuals who we expect to be there to protect and serve — but you don’t get protection and you don’t get service. Instead you get a murder.”

People at the marches called for a variety of reforms. Some called for the police to be demilitarized, citing the military gear sported by police at some rallies, which some protestors have called a factor in escalating violence. This week, Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz introduced a bill that would end the program that allows local police departments to receive military equipment. 

Levy and others also called for defunding police departments and shifting that money into social service programs. 

Ballard wants a stop to racial profiling. When she goes out to stores with white friends, she said, she will often be the only one who gets stopped on the way out to check for a receipt. 

She also has to be mindful of not giving police a pretext to stop her, she said. 

“Every time I hang out with my friends and we’re doing something and they don’t have their seatbelts on, I have to tell them, ‘Put your seatbelts on because I’m a black person in the backseat,'” she said. 

Punishments should be harsher for police who commit brutality, Harris said. 

“There need to be federal consequences,” he said. “They’ve got to be automatic if we got it on camera, and there was no threat to you or towards anybody else. We have no justifiable reason for killing anybody.”

Wednesday afternoon, the charges against Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck, were raised from third-degree murder to the more severe second-degree murder.  

Langseth called for people to come together and listen to each other. He approvingly cited police in Flint who marched with protesters and listened to their concerns. 

Walstrom has only experienced police brutality through viral videos. Some groups of people still aren’t as fortunate, she said. 

“People like me don’t experience it,” she said. “I hope we’ll see some change with respect to how we treat people.”