Market Street March
Wednesday, November 4 — Several hundred protesters marched east on Market Street in remembrance of Walter Wallace Jr, to demand change from the Philadelphia Police Department and to call for the release of local organizer Anthony Smith
Just days after the killing of Walter Wallace Jr in West Philadelphia and the subsequent unrest around the city, organizers from Black Lives Matter, the Black Philly Radical Collective, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation led hundreds of night-time marchers from City Hall to the mayor’s residence at 3rd and Race on Wednesday. Despite the fact that the video of Wallace’s murder spread widely and was discussed by top officials in the city, even including the release of further bodycam footage, the presidential election and its hinging upon Philadelphia drowned out much of the conversation about policing and Mr. Wallace. This march sought to bring focus back to Walter Wallace Jr and to remind the city of its ongoing struggle with police brutality and racial inequity, including the federal charges being pressed against activist Anthony Smith.
The march began at a symbolically significant place that speaks to the long history of this fight: the memorial to Octavius Catto on the south side of City Hall. An invaluable leader for people of color and the oppressed in Philadelphia during the American Civil War and into the Reconstruction period, Catto worked tirelessly to gain civil equality between races and to defend the freedom and dignity of black and brown people. He worked against the same injustices that activists are facing today, and he met his demise in an all too familiar way: on election day of 1871, Catto was shot dead in broad daylight by a white man on South street. The murderer, Frank Kelley, was acquitted years later by an all-white jury.
Nearly 150 years after Catto’s murder, America has made little progress in protecting the lives of black people and provide justice for those who have suffered. The stories of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Walter Wallace Jr, and countless others have been seared into the public memory, only to expose the ugly truth that Catto spoke of so many years ago. When connecting these modern reports to a long history of eerily similar crimes, the chant “No Justice, No Peace” echoed in protests around the nation seems louder than ever.
With Catto’s memory in mind, the marchers began to move East on Market Street towards Independence Hall. Stopping in view of a massive police presence with the Liberty Bell in the background, organizers listed their demands for change from the Philadelphia Police Department, citing a long history of tense relations and centering on the release of Anthony Smith, a prominent organizer and activist for justice in West Philadelphia. “Free Ant Smith” was heard repeatedly through the organizers’ megaphones.
Anthony (Ant) Smith, an activist and organizer with the Philadelphia Coalition for Racial and Economic Legal Justice (Philly for REAL Justice), was arrested by FBI agents at his home on Wednesday, October 28 under arson charges related to the burning of a PPD cruiser on May 31 and was taken to the Lehigh county jail. A pawn in a larger political battle, Smith’s charges are being pressed by federal prosecutor William McSwain, who is attempting to capitalize on the local chaos and brand himself as tougher on crime than District Attorney Larry Krasner. While aggressively claiming Smith and two other men are guilty of arson, McSwain has offered little to no evidence which ties Smith to the crime, aside from some very vague social media posts.
Smith’s lawyer, Paul Hetznecker, is quoted in Philly Mag as saying that these charges are “weak and ill-conceived” and that they are “about cracking down on political dissent. This was a political decision. They are criminalizing dissent. Leftism has been demonized by the right wing law enforcement community.” McSwain denies any political or personal motivation for pressing these charges.
Smith’s family and friends have also expressed doubts towards McSwain’s charges, claiming that Smith is an honored grade school teacher, an activist committed to peace and is beloved in his community. This love and respect for Smith was shown not only in the march on Market Street, but also in over 70 letters that were sent to the judge overseeing his case which spoke of Smith’s character and selflessness. One such letter from Smith’s coworker read: “At his core, it is clear to me that Ant cares deeply about people, and about community. He individually greets everyone who enters his classroom or who passes him in the hallway… He is not interested in the spotlight. He is interested in the well being of a community.”
Along with the outpouring of support seen in the march, these letters seemed to influence the court’s thinking on pre-trial detention. After nearly two weeks in the Lehigh county jail, a federal judge approved Smith’s appeal to be released on bail on November 7. The news of Smith’s release on bail provides hope and his online supporters seem confident that the trial ahead will play out in Smith’s favor. In this sense, the march was extremely successful and should be emulated by organizers hoping for change, but the work to retain protections for politically active individuals and marginalized people is certainly far from complete. Like Catto, organizers and activists will continue to place their lives on the line in the fight against racial violence and injustice.
Knowing this, the organizers spoke about the planned events to follow up and maintain the directed energy of the city when they concluded the march at Mayor Kenney’s downtown residence. Coming up, there are multiple workshops in a “Philly Phreedom Weekend” being held by Black Lives Matter and the Black Philly Radical Collective including abolition seminars online, coordinated outreach to help the Wallace family, and a rally at Malcolm X Park in West Philadelphia.
