Chapter 3
NIA
The next day, people streamed into Linn Park from all directions. Grandmothers with the church fans, college kids wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts, and fathers carrying babies on their shoulders. Several people held signs like ‘Justice for Jaylen’ or ‘Black youth deserve to grow old.’
I adjusted my press credentials around my neck, though part of me wanted to rip them off and be another person rather than Dr. Nia Price, an academic observer.
Talia appeared by my side, wearing a black bandanna. Today she wore all black, like most of the crowd. Mourning colors for a child Birmingham had failed.
“You made it. I wasn’t sure if Dr. Price would step out of the ivory tower to join us common folks.”
I bumped her shoulder with mine. “Girl, stop. You know I’m always down for the cause. I’m just trying to document it properly, too.” I held up my recorder, already catching the sounds of the gathering crowd, the chanting, and snippets of conversations.
Talia squeezed my arm. “I understand we need both the fighters and the chroniclers.”
I didn’t tell her sometimes the line between those roles was razor thin; my academic distance felt like a betrayal on nights like this.
“Where do you want to set up?” Talia asked as she surveyed the growing crowd.
“I think I’m going to move around and get different voices. You organizing or just attending?”
Talia gestured toward a group of people wearing neon yellow vests near the makeshift stage. “Both. I’m helping with the speakers, coordinating with the marshals. They’re starting the formal program in about twenty minutes. You good on your own?”
“Born that way,” I replied with a smile, and we hugged before Talia walked away.
I moved deeper into the park, holding my recorder slightly above my shoulder to capture the soundscape.
A group of young men worked to distribute water bottles.
Mothers linked arms, wearing shirts with photos of sons they lost to police violence.
There were so many faces, so many names, a litany of death that never seemed to end.
I walked up to a woman holding a sign with Jaylen’s photo bordered by painted sunflowers and decided she would be a good place to start.
“Ma’am, would you mind if I ask you a few questions for my research?”
She eyed my recorder and press badge. “What kind of research?”
“I’m documenting protest movements across the South. Looking at how communities respond to police brutality.”
“You with the newspaper?”
“I’m a professor at Atlanta State, and I’m a visiting lecturer at Birmingham State. Civil rights historian.”
“Okay, ask your question, professor.” She agreed.
“What brought you here tonight?”
“The same thing that brings me every time, another Black child dead who shouldn’t be.
Jaylen was my nephew’s friend and an honor student.
They pulled him over for a broken taillight, and he ended up with three bullets in him.
Police say he reached for something. We haven’t seen the body cam footage, though.
How convenient.” Her voice remained steady, though her eyes glistened.
“What would justice look like to you?” I asked.
“Release the footage, fire the officers, and charge them the same way they’d charge one of us. Though justice, real justice, would be Jaylen alive and applying to college like he was supposed to be doing right now!”
I thanked her and moved on, asking similar questions to other people throughout the crowd.
As I finished interviewing a group of college students, I noticed a subtle shift in the crowd’s energy as conversations dropped to murmurs. People in the crowd repeatedly glanced at the edge of the park. I followed their gazes, and my stomach tightened.
Police cruisers lined the perimeter more than usual for a permitted protest. Officers stood with their hands resting on their belts, not actively threatening, but deliberately visible. This wasn’t just BPD beyond them; I spotted the first military vehicles.
“The fuck?” I whispered, raising my camera to zoom in on what clearly was a National Guard deployment; soldiers in full tactical gear unloaded from trucks, arranging themselves in formation at the park’s edge.
I made my way to the outer edge of the crowd, recording as I moved. “It’s approximately six thirty p.m., and the National Guard troops have positioned themselves around the protest perimeter. This is a significant escalation for a peaceful memorial gathering.”
As I got closer, I spotted a patch on one soldier’s uniform. I zoomed my camera lens, focusing on the insignia, a red clay symbol with ‘Operation Red Clay’ beneath it.
I narrated into my recorder. “The National Guard units have patches identifying them as part of Operation Red Clay. This appears to be a deployment rather than a standard backup.”
Behind me, the program began with the pastor leading the crowd in prayer, but the attention was half on the speakers and half on the growing military presence as whispers spread through the gathering.
“Why’d they bring soldiers? Something’s not right,” I heard someone say.
I caught sight of Talia near the stage, her expression tense as she spoke into a walkie-talkie. The protest marshals moved deliberately now and positioned themselves between the crowd and the authorities, trying to maintain the peaceful atmosphere as anxiety rippled through the gathering.
Three more military trucks arrived. I estimated at least forty soldiers now, arranging themselves in strategic positions anyone would recognize as a containment formation.
“They’re boxing us in,” somebody nearby said, and that was exactly what I was thinking.
I gripped my recorder tighter as I noted the escalation tactics. My phone buzzed, but I looked at the notification on my watch. It was a text from a colleague at Birmingham State:
Heard from a source in the mayor’s office, federal intervention confirmed for tonight’s protest. Be careful.
I swallowed hard, looking at the troops.
I spoke into my recorder. “This is Dr. Nia Price documenting from Linn Park. The memorial for Jaylen Harris is currently peaceful, with approximately five hundred attendees. They did not inform protesters why military presence is necessary for a permitted memorial gathering.”
Another larger military vehicle arrived as I spoke. I could tell the people were nervous. I checked my backup device to ensure it was still recording and slipped it into my inner pocket. Whatever was about to happen, I was determined to document it all.
The first canister shot through the air like a shooting star as white smoke hit the darkening sky.
For a split second, the crowd was silent before the disaster.
Then it hit the ground twenty feet away from me as gas spilled into the evening air.
Someone screamed. Then everyone screamed.
The memorial for Jaylen Harris disappeared in an instant, replaced by commotion as more canisters rained down from all directions.
The switch from peaceful assembly to war zone happened faster than my brain could process.
“Gas! Cover your faces!” someone shouted, which my lungs already understood.
My throat closed up like I’d swallowed fire. My eyes watered so badly I could barely see. I fumbled to pull my collar over my nose and mouth while trying to hold on to my recorder. Though I was stubborn and determined to document, I refused to let go of the recorder, as my body screamed for escape.
I tried to narrate but ended up coughing so hard I doubled over. The air was now poisoned with chemical warfare designed to disperse American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.
People rushed past me in all directions, away from the gas and away from soldiers now advancing to the park. People collided, and someone fell hard beside me. Someone knocked an older woman’s cane away. I grabbed her cane with my free hand before helping her away from the crowd.
“I got you. Keep moving,” I gushed, the words burning my throat like acid.
Everything blurred, not just from tears, but the disorientation from the tear gas made me dizzy and panicked, like I couldn’t get enough oxygen. It was like drowning on dry land.
I kept the recorder running, refusing to let this moment go undocumented. “Tear gas deployed, no warning given.” I wheezed.
Through tears, I noticed a child separated from their parent, standing frozen in terror as the chaos moved around them.
Without thinking, I changed direction, pushing against the crowd to reach the little girl.
She couldn’t have been over seven. “Where is your mama?” I asked, kneeling, despite the pain in my lungs.
She pointed vaguely toward the stage area, now covered by gas clouds.
“Stay with me. We’ll find her,” I told the little girl, grabbing her small hand.
My eyes burned so badly I could barely keep them open, but I forced myself to scan the crowd, looking for anyone searching for a child. The thick gas spread, making each breath more painful than the last. The little girl’s hand tightened around mine as she coughed violently.
That was when I saw him.
Through the chemical clouds, a tall figure moved with purpose, not away from danger, but into it.
Through my blurred vision, the uniform was unmistakable; Chief Ronan Banks himself was not behind police lines, but in the thick of the panic.
Unlike what I’d expected, he directed the crowd. He was helping people up.
I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision enough to be sure of what I was seeing.
The man whose face decorated billboards throughout the city was helping an older man to his feet, pointing him toward a clear path away from the worst of the gas.
Then he moved to a young woman who had fallen, helping her up and checking whether she could walk before moving to the next person.
What the fuck?