GETTYSBURG If youve visited Gettysburg in recent months, youve likely seen yard signs declaring: This battle was fought because Black Lives Matter."
Some have been stolen over the last few months, said Karl Mattson, the man who had more than 100 of these signs made and distributed. Often, though, hell sit in his yard on the Civil War battlefield and watch as cars slow to read his sign. Sometimes, the drivers get out and take photos.
The signs are in response to what happened here on the Fourth of July, Mattson said, referring to a day dozens of armed people descended on the battlefield in response to rumors of a planned flag-burning. It sparked concerns in the community about the potential for violence, particularly after some were seen harassing a man wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt.
Mattson, a retired Gettysburg College chaplain and founder of the colleges Center for Public Service, is hoping his signs change the narrative in Gettysburg.
Gettysburg is about more than monuments, he said. While its important to recognize the sacrifices made on the battlefield, the Fourth of July episode showed there is also a continued animosity in this country, he said.
My feeling is that this is the nations most sacred place, and it should be a celebration of emancipation and freedom, Mattson said.
After the Fourth of July incident made national news, and perhaps in response to it, Black Lives Matter protests started in Gettysburg and have been occurring most weekends since then.
And while the protests have been small and largely peaceful, some in the community are concerned about the increasing use of foul language.
I get a lot of flak for some of the words that I use. Some people say Im vulgar, and I will say I can be very vulgar, Black Lives Matter demonstrator Leslie Mon-Lashway said. But I feel that if youre more offended by a curse word than you are about people dying by racism, then I dont really have a lot to say about that.
Leslie Mon-Lashway.October 5, 2020.Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com
The protests she leads have been occurring in Lincoln Square, near the David Wills House, where the U.S. president whose name now graces the square stayed during his visit 157 years ago.
Lately, counter-demonstrators have started showing up, furthering community concern over the potential for trouble. And on Oct. 3, for the first time since the protests began, Gettysburg police have filed charges against some of the protesters.
Weekly protests in an historic town
Before the Black Lives Matter protests started this summer in Gettysburg, there was another demonstration nearby on the battlefield.
Scores of armed people came to town, saying they were there to guard the battlefield and protect Confederate monuments against rumors of Antifa violence on the Fourth of July.
Many were members of militia groups, many armed and some wearing military-like gear. Images showed some carrying Confederate flags.
They were drawn by social media reports that anti-Fascist groups planned to burn flags at Gettysburg National Cemetery, and rumors that violence would follow. These reports were later determined to be an Internet hoax, according to the Washington Post.
But when a man wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt later identified as the associate pastor of a Methodist church in Hanover tried to visit the grave of an ancestor in the cemetery, he was surrounded by 50 people who began loudly arguing with him.
Are we in agreement that all lives matter? one man asked the crowd, drawing cheers in response. Officers soon arrived and led the man in the t-shirt away for his own safety, with chants of USA and suggestions to get the [expletive] outta here trailing him.
Many in the community, in addition to Mattson, were shocked by what happened.
I closed up shop early that day, said Timbrel Wallace, owner of Lark, A Modern Marketplace on Lincoln Square. Shoppers avoided town, and families were uncomfortable with the displays of firearms, she said, adding, It was shocking to see in your community.
A week after that, the demonstrations in support of the Black Lives Matter movement started in Gettysburg.
Wallace attended that first Black Lives Matter demonstration, hosted by several community groups and held in the square near her shop. She described it as quiet, respectful and somber, adding it was a good thing for the community to come together to rally behind Black Lives Matter.
We believe in equality, and those are some of the values we hold in this community, she said.
Though Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Lincoln Square occurred most weeks after that, as time went on, fewer and fewer people showed up. The movement in Gettysburg seemed to be fading, said Mon-Lashway, who attended some of those early rallies.
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Scenes from Gettysburg on July 4th
Mon-Lashway said she believed they needed to continue, particularly in Gettysburg, so she stepped up.
Gettysburg is so significant. We literally fought a race war there, Mon-Lashway said.
For her, the movement started when she saw the footage of George Floyds death, a police officer kneeling on his neck as a crowd watched. She was shocked by the brutality, she said, shocked at the crowd just watching, and she realized, it can happen to any of us.
She started protesting with a few friends standing silently at first with signs in the town square of her hometown, nearby Hanover, where a monument stands to the lesser-known battle fought the day before the start of the Gettysburg campaign.
When she moved her efforts to Gettysburg, she silently held up signs with a few other protesters. But that changed one day, she said, when she displayed a sign with an image of a Confederate flag and a Nazi flag and the words, America doesnt want either of these, proven in two wars.
Thats when a man on a motorcycle yelled an expletive at her, and she yelled back, the Confederacy lost.
The man got off of the motorcycle, she said, got into her face, yelling and spitting, no mask, hitting her sign as she held it up to shield herself, trying to intimidate her and the other demonstrators.
It wasnt the first time she was yelled at. The drivers of passing cars have thrown beverages at her, and shes heard shouts of white power, heil Hitler, and every racial slur imaginable, she said. People have even reenacted the death of Floyd in front of her in the square.
But after that moment and when nothing happened after four people filed a report with police things changed, she said.
Her silence was over.
And thats when people noticed.
Thats what upset them. That I was angry and using curse words, she said. It was that I used a profane word, and it upsets me that thats what sticks. But if thats what does it, thats what does it.
Charges over the weekend
Mon-Lashways demonstrations occur near the shop owned by Wallace, who said she is a supporter of Black Lives Matter and supports everyones right to speak their mind.
Largely, the protests in the square have been positive, Wallace said, and she has not experienced any business disruptions, though she does normally close soon after they typically begin.
She has noticed a change in the tone, though.
The most recent have been a little more concerning for the community at large, she said. There have been two separate groups with different views. I think when those people get together, things get a little contentious. Those situations are probably not good for the community.
She would like to see the negativity toned down, and she does not support the language that has been used. Neither do the police.
The protests are generally not large, Gettysburg police Chief Robert Glenny said. But they have started to become disruptive, he said.
If theyre shouting, Black Lives Matter or say their names or even if theyre shouting hey, hey, ho, ho, these racist cops have got to go, thats protected speech, Glenny said.
As an example, he added that even someone holding a sign containing the f-word, saying something to the extent of if the f-word offends you, why doesnt racism? would be protected speech in that context.
However, when you get to some of the more vulgar language, and its shouted out in, Ill use the term fighting words, or its creating a hazardous or physically offensive condition or there are kids around or diners around trying to eat and these things are shouted and theres no way to legitimize that comment, thats disorderly conduct, Glenny said. And were going to take action on it.
Counter-protesters, who recently started showing up, might be contributing to increased tensions, Glenny said, but they have the right to be there, too.
And on Oct. 3, for the first time, three people were charged.
Glenny said one person was charged with summary harassment. That charge came after a verbal confrontation between protesters and counter-protesters, with one of the BLM protesters knocking the hat off of a counter-demonstrators head, he said.
It may sound petty to some extent, but we cant allow it to go on and escalate, Glenny said.
One person is facing criminal charges of obstruction of justice for driving by without headlights after sunset and shouted vulgar language, Glenny said. That person had to be pulled out of the car to be arrested and was criminally charged, police say. Further details were not immediately available since those charging documents were not yet filed with the district judges office, and police have not released the name.
Mon-Lashway was issued a summary disorderly conduct citation for her language. She disputes the police account of what happened and denies reports that anyone on her side was carrying rifles, saying the counter-protesters have only shown up to intimidate and antagonize.
She said the demonstrator who was charged with harassment only flicked the bill of the hat off a counter-demonstrator who was intimidating a 12-year-old child.
Her own charge of disorderly conduct came after she used profanities, which she admitted to using, but added she was not yelling at the crowd. She was talking to one woman in particular who was shining a light in her face, trying to bait her.
She added the counter-demonstrators were not charged and had never been charged by the police.
Attempts to reach anyone associated with the counter-demonstrators were unsuccessful.
Jenny Dumont, of Gettysburg Rising, formed in 2017, said she is a strong supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and she supports Mon-Lashways right to protest and her cause. But she has some concerns.
While their intentions are in the right place, theyre new at organizing, and they dont necessarily have the best protocols in place for de-escalating situations and ensuring everyones safety, Dumont said.
She understands Mon-Lashways frustrations when met with counter-demonstrators who might be aggressive, but Dumont said cursing at them and using foul language is not the answer.
She recommends that they take some training in civil disobedience, using those methods like taking a knee or turning their backs -- methods used by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. That would bring more people to her cause, Dumont said. She said she has spoken to some of the protesters, and they seemed to be receptive.
A new birth of freedom
Over a century ago, Abraham Lincoln famously said in a 272-word speech that Gettysburg is home to a new birth of freedom.
For Mattson, now long retired and living on the battlefield, those words have a particular resonance. He said his sign links the struggles of the past with those occurring today. He hopes his words cut through the politics and noise and elevate the conversation.
Rather than thinking about Gettysburg as a place of conflict or battlefield tactics or sacrifice, it should be thought of as a place that signifies emancipation and freedom for Black people, he said, sitting in his backyard on the battlefield, where flowers now bloom, yards away from the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. Gettysburg should be the place where we think about the struggles of those who endured slavery and those who helped begin the process of freedom.
He still has hope, he said, and his hope is that Gettysburg may be the first step in finding the peace most seem to want.
A place to meditate on where weve come from, he said, and where we need to go.
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In Gettysburg, this summers Black Lives Matter protests have bled into fall and become a war of words - PennLive