Three activists convicted of blocking a roadway during a 2020 protest in Gainesville are now calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out their conviction.
Several days after three Gainesville activists said they organized a brief, peaceful march protesting a Confederate monument in front of the Cooke County courthouse in August 2020, they were each arrested and charged with obstructing a roadway.
In 2022, all three protestors were convicted and face a seven-day jail sentence and a $2,000 fine. Their appeal last year to the Seventh Court of Appeals in Amarillo was denied, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined to hear their case earlier this year, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as their final avenue of appeal.
The ACLU of Texas, which is representing the protestors, has argued that the conviction violates the three protestors’ First Amendment right to protest.
Cooke County attorney Ed Zielinski, who prosecuted the case, declined comment.
Savannah Kumar, the ACLU lawyer representing the three, said while the punishment is small, the precedent it would set is alarming. The ACLU is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the convictions on the grounds that the arrest and conviction violated the First Amendment. Kumar said her clients are not denying they or the crowd walked into the street, but said they should not be held liable for the actions of the whole group of protestors.
“It’s deeply concerning,” Kumar said. “The most extreme deprivation of liberty the state can do is jailing them.”
PRO Gainesville
Torrey Henderson, Justin Thompson and Amara Ridge founded Progressive Rights Organizers Gainesville in June 2020 in response to George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis. Thompson and Henderson said the group is focused on advocating for racial justice and inclusivity in Gainesville, a town about 70 miles northeast of Dallas.
Thompson said with Gainesville being a small, rural community, it can be easy for marginalized groups to feel isolated.
One of the first actions the group took was organizing a prayer vigil for Floyd near the Cooke County courthouse, Thompson said. With the proximity to the courthouse, many people began discussing the Confederate monument that sits on the courthouse lawn.
The monument, which depicts a Confederate soldier standing atop a stone pillar, has text that reads “No nation rose so white and fair, none feel so pure of crime,” “And whose patriotism will teach their children to emulate the deeds of their revolutionary sires,” and “God holds the scales of justice; He will measure praise and blame; and the South will stand the verdict, and will stand it without shame.”
Thompson said initially, PRO Gainesville members attempted to speak with the county Commissioners Court about removing the monument, but when those attempts failed, they decided to organize a protest.
Just prior to the march, the City Council unanimously approved removal of a statue in a park. About a week before the march, the Cooke County Commissioners Court voted 4-1 to keep the one in front of the courthouse.
The protest
On Aug. 30, 2020, PRO Gainesville organized a march that began and ended at the Cooke County Courthouse.
According to petitions filed by the ACLU on behalf of PRO Gainesville, about 30 to 40 people gathered in front of the courthouse. Thompson reminded them to stay hydrated and remain on the sidewalk during the march.
According to the documents, and a Gainesville Register article, a group of armed counter protestors assembled.
The group marched down California Street and back, which took 10 minutes. According to Thompson and Henderson, the group met with police officers before to ensure police knew of the route and that everything was planned correctly and legally.
Thompson said there were multiple departments present and he went up to officers from each to make sure the group was doing everything correctly. And he said each officer shook his hand and told him everything was good.
But three days later, Thompson, Henderson and Ridge learned there were warrants out for their arrests.
The charges
According to the Supreme Court petition, the three were charged with obstructing a highway or other passageway, a misdemeanor. Case documents said during the protest, several participants moved off the sidewalk to avoid a puddle of water.
According to the opinion confirming their conviction delivered by the Seventh Court of Appeals in Amarillo, participants also walked in the street, spanning from the sidewalk to the middle yellow line and crossed the street at a spot that was not a designated crosswalk, both of which briefly stopped traffic.
According to the Seventh Court of Appeals opinion, several police officers at the protest testified they told protestors to get out of the street roughly 10 times, and witnessed Henderson, along with other protestors, chanting “Whose streets? Our streets,” when asked to get out of the roadway.
The documents also said a bicyclist was observed stopping in the middle of an intersection and stopped a single car for about 20 to 90 seconds.
According to the ACLU, the bicyclist was not identified as a member of the protest, and they have not been charged. Kumar, the ACLU lawyer representing Thompson, Henderson and Ridge, the three are being charged simply for being the organizers of the protest, and contends the three did not personally obstruct the roadway or direct the group to do so.
The three organizers were convicted in September 2022, inside the same courthouse they protested outside of.
Thompson said following the protest, small groups have continued to call for the monument’s removal, to no avail. While there have been other protests and actions by PRO Gainesville in the years since the three’s arrest, Thompson said he has become concerned about being arrested again, but said he has tried to put those fears in the back of his mind.
“I’m not going to allow the government’s overreach to sway my rights to protest,” Thompson said.
Henderson said the group has been successful in advocating for the removal of the Confederate statue in a local park and removing Robert E. Lee’s name from a local middle school, but said after the three’s arrest, many have felt scared to engage in protests for fear of reprisal.
“The reason we were arrested was to get us to stop protesting,” Henderson said.
