Tag Archives: Connell Crooms

Protests in the Summer of 2020, the spring of 1964

Posted on June 2, 2020 | Leave a comment

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This story compares the protests of 1964 to those of 2020. It demonstrates how current protests call out the murder of George Floyd, but also the long pattern of Jacksonville police abuses of authority. It shows how 1964 Jax protests were met with official racism and racist vigilantism and how 2020 protests were met with public bullying against organizers. It suggests how police, if they care, might start the process to make a systemic (not a “bad apples”) restructuring, and asks what we might do about the disintegration of America.

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Tagged Ahmaud Arbery, Ax Handle Saturday, B.D. McEwan, Breonna Taylor, Brittany Chrishawn, Chris Swanson, Christina Kittle, Coalition for Consent, Connell Crooms, Dale Carson, Delaine Smith, Derek Chauvin, Elmer Kato, Eugene Davis, Fraternal Order of Police, George Floyd, Gregory McMichael, Haydon Burns, J.C. Patrick, J.W. Rich, Jacksonville Community Action Committee, James Patrick, Jax 5, Jessica Pounds, Johnnie Mae Chappell, Keisha Lance Bottoms, KKK, Ku Klux Klan, Lenny Curry, Mayor Lenny Curry, Mike Durham, Mike Williams, Ministerial Alliance, NAACP, New Stanton School, Police Administration Building, Rex Sweat, Rutledge Pearson, Steve Zona, Travis McMichael, Walter Headly, Wayne Chessman, Willie Chappell

Ending 2017 by Looking Back at the Crooms and Mahmoud Murals

Posted on December 30, 2017 | Leave a comment

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Most of the talk of Connell Crooms, standing 150 feet tall on one cement silo, and Sara Mahmoud, standing back to back with him on the silo adjoining, concerns unity and solidarity, but Connell mentions the “power of irony.”

Van Helten turned these concrete ciphers into pillars of unity and community. The mural festival that brought him to town, ArtRepublic, alienated and angered much of the city’s art community, but Van Helten successfully soaked up the city and gave it back.

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Tagged cement silos, Commodore Point, Connell Crooms, Edward Said, Fairfield, Guido Van Helten, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, Lafarge North America, Orientalism, Sara Mahmoud, Tim Gilmore

Arlington and Lillian Roads: No ID Required

Posted on July 1, 2017 | 1 comment

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Respectfully, Devonte Shipman asks, “What was it that we did wrong, Officer?” This kind of thing has happened to him before. This time, he’s recording it.

Officer J.S. Bolen says, “You crossed the crosswalk! Against the red hand!” He threatens to put him in jail, calls for backup, and tells Vonte that Florida requires its residents to carry an ID at all times.

As though Bolen understands time in neighborhoods deemed not worth time. As though Bolen understands his position as Vonte Shipman’s public servant.

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Tagged Arlington, Arlington Expressway, Black Lives Matter, Blues Lives Matter, Connell Crooms, Devonte Shipman, Elias Campos, J.S. Bolen, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, jaywalking, Jim Crow, Lillian Road, lynching, Sin City, Tim Gilmore, Timothy James

New Story: Hemming Park: Race and Brutality in the Genius Loci

Posted on April 15, 2017 | Leave a comment

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Friday night, April 7, 2017. Several Jacksonville police officers hold 155 lb Connell Crooms, an unarmed black man, down on the ground in Hemming Park, while Officer B.D. (Benjamin Daniel) McEwan crouches over Crooms and punches him repeatedly.

Astonishingly. Perhaps impudently. Probably just ignorantly. Which is no excuse. The root of “ignorance” is “ignore.” Sheriff Mike Williams begins his April 10^th statement about the Hemming Park beatings and arrests with the word “Historically.”

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Tagged Ax Handle Saturday, B.D. McEwan, ben mcewan, Confederate Soldier Statue, Connell Crooms, frederick douglass, Hemming Park, Isaiah D. Hart, James Weldon Johnson, jaxpsychogeo, Robert Meyer Hotel, Rodney L. Hurst, Sheriff Mike Williams, Tim Gilmore, tim haines