Yarn over Police Brutality: Race and the Occupation of Rochester City Hall’s Steps during the Daniel Prude Protest

Abstract

This reflection describes what happened when 40 women, predominantly white and from suburban and rural areas of residence, gathered on the Rochester City Hall steps in September 2020, in New York State, following the Rochester Police Department killing of Daniel Prude, a Black man having a mental-health episode in March 2020. The white yarn activists engaged in quiet craft activism, allied with the local Black Lives Matter activists, to hold space on City Hall steps so the BLM activists could engage in self-care during the day in advance of nightly protests that also encountered police brutality. The concept of “textile togethereness” posits that all forms of activism can work together to heighten the fight for social justice, even complicated by racial and geographic demographics.