OLATHE, Kan. — As the ninth day of protests began on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, another metro area community started its own.
In Olathe, a protest full of families with young children took place.
“I came out here to protest Black Lives Matter because it really does, and it does really matter," 7-year-old Trenley Phillips said.
Families with children as young as 5 years old lined East Santa Fe Street in Olathe to peacefully protest in the wake of George Floyd's death last month in Minneapolis.
“My mom made this sign, and it says, 'Black Lives Matter,'" 11-year-old Camryn Lewis said, "and we came out here today to protest for Black rights because it’s not fair what’s happening."
Finding a safe space for children to share their message was the organizers' goal.
“We had planned to go to the protest, my son and I downtown, or at the Plaza and it was intimidating to him," Ayesha Palmer said. "It was just a large crowd and he was nervous."
What started out as a Facebook event, brought together a number of families across Johnson County.
“It’s awesome because it starts with them because they are the next leaders," LaToya Rozof said. "So it made sense to get them involved at an early age about change and show them that you can do change positively and peacefully."
Parents at the protest told 41 Action News that the conversation might be a difficult one to have with children, but it's one that needs to happen.
“You don’t need to scare them, but they do need the conversation," Meredith Blake said.
Lindsay Lewis told 41 Action News that she brought her children out to the protest to share their message with others.
“Their thought is that everyone should love each other, so I felt it was important for them to come out and be a part of this," Lewis said.
While each sign held had a different statement written on it, every child had similar thoughts.
“It has to be even, because right now it’s really not," Phillips said.
Organizers of Saturdays protest told 41 Action News they felt it was important to bring the message into their own communities, despite the size of the protest.
