The return of the JEDI came to a busy intersection in Moline on Saturday.
Holding a two-sided sign (one proclaimed BLM and VOTE, the other Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion -- JEDI), Anne Thode was among about 20 protestors who displayed civil rights signs and American flags on June 13 – three weeks before America’s 250th anniversary and exactly six years after the first such Black Lives Matter protest on the corner of John Deere Road and 16th Street.
Thode, 72, of Davenport, is a member of Progressive Action for the Common Good (PACG) and Unitarian Universalist, and has been taking part in the weekly protests here (always Saturdays from noon to 12:30 p.m.) regularly since 2024.
“You can even brave the coldest of weather for a half an hour. If you can't, you can put in 20 minutes,” she said on a bright, warm, sunny Saturday.
“We usually have a smaller group. Yeah, but we occasionally, we have had different groups come in and it's always good to see a new group,” she said. “The word's getting out is what's happening. And it's only a half hour, you know, we're not asking anyone to commit to a whole day.”
“I can get out and feel like I'm doing something, just something, because we were just stagnant,” Thode said of the sentiment six years ago. “We were sitting in our homes, you know, complaining, feeling down, depressed. It's time to get out.”
Led by Caryn Unsicker and Glenda Guster, the weekly Moline rallies were sparked with nationwide protests after the May 25, 2020 murder of George Floyd, 46, a Black man who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd had used a counterfeit $20 bill.
One of four police officers who arrived on the scene, Derek Chauvin, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for almost ten minutes, fatally asphyxiating him. After his murder, a series of protests against police brutality, especially towards African-Americans, quickly spread nationally and then globally. His dying words became a rallying slogan: “I can’t breathe” (Unsicker held a sign with those words Saturday, June 13).
After his murder, the City of Minneapolis settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Floyd's family for $27 million. Chauvin was convicted on two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter on April 20, 2021, and on June 25, 2021, was sentenced to 221⁄2 years in prison.
Stoking racial and anti-immigrant fears is a way to get people to vote, Thode said.
“I think it's another one of the catch subjects to bring out people out of the woodwork, because I do not believe that the United States feels that way. I think it just gets the voters, the people that haven't been that active out to vote. It's fear,” she said. “This jumping in and ruining the chances for a lot of people that have been marginalized is unacceptable.”
Especially on the 250th anniversary of the country, it’s important for people to truly be united around common issues, like health care, sustainable wages and cost of living, Thode said.
“Pointing fingers at one another is not going to help. We need to come together on the items that we— the issues that we do have in common,” she said. “We'll never solve everything, you know. We just have to make sure that we're a better United States than what we have been.”
Unsicker said on the sixth anniversary of the first Racial Equality Rally in Moline, in the time since Floyd’s murder inspired national reckonings on race and use of force against unarmed Black people, there seems to have been little progress in our country toward preventing these tragedies or in improving racial relations through community policing. In Rock Island, young Jakarta Jackson was killed last year by a white officer, Unsicker noted.
Since June 13, 2020, she and Guster (who is African-American) have been bringing attention to the issue every Saturday by holding up “Black Lives Matter” and “Honk for Racial Equality” signs from noon to 12:30 p.m. on this Moline intersection, across from Southpark Mall.
They have enlisted PACG members and others to join them in holding ongoing rallies to honor George Floyd and the many other victims of color before (and since) his murder.
Keeping issue alive after 6 years
Unsicker said she knew back in 2020 that the issue would fade once the media moved on to cover other news, so she called Guster and they agreed to keep the issue alive indefinitely as long as racial inequality was a reality in our country.
Unsicker states that, despite an occasional detractor, the large number of honks and thumbs up they get each week from passersby of all races is encouraging. “That’s what keeps us going,” she said. “This tells us that most people want to keep the conversation about racial equality alive and active, and that many people acknowledge that we need solutions so we can heal as a nation -- even in these times of deep division.”
Unsicker – a 79-year-old resident of Silvis and former PACG president -- comes each Saturday with her dog Sammy.
It’s essential to continue the rally every week, even after six years, “because racism's still alive and well in our country and I feel like we're going backwards with in the last few years, it just breaks my heart,” she said.
“That's why it's like I'm ashamed in a way of where we've been,” Unsicker said of the second Trump administration. “We at least were making progress. I'm old enough now, I was doing this in the '60s and '70s, fighting for the Civil Rights Act and women's rights. And, you know, and now they've gutted the Civil Rights Act. We're going backwards. And I just, while I'm still on this earth, I can do this and it can bring attention to it.”
“I believe in Americans, most people want racial equality and don't like all this re-fired-up racism,” she said. “If you stick around here long enough, you'll see a middle finger or a honk or a thumbs down. You know, but that's why we keep doing it. My friend Glenda and I and many people— there usually aren't this many people here, but we've had a lot of new ones lately. And there's a core of us from Progressive Action for the Common Good.
“There's a core of us that try to come every week, like 2 to 8 of us. And we're just going to do it until things improve greatly,” she said.
Citing Jakarta Jackson, Unsicker said: “Stuff like that just keeps happening and happening. And my friends who are Black tell me they're afraid for their sons or grandsons to go out,” she added. “I'm glad we're here. We're not going to stop. We're going to keep making the statement come rain or shine.”
Jackson, an unarmed 21-year-old Black man, was fatally shot on Jan. 5, 2025. The Rock Island Police officer who shot and killed Jackson was justified in his use of deadly force, according to a report by Rock Island County State’s Attorney Dora Villareal.
Jackson had committed several serious felonies, the report says, including child endangerment, aggravated fleeing and eluding, aggravated battery to an officer, attempt murder, and reckless driving.
“Although Jackson was not found to be in a possession of a weapon, the vehicle was used as a weapon,” the report says, adding that the force the officer used “was proportional to the threat Jackson posed.”
“If people don't support racial equality, that's their business, but just don't vote it into office,” Unsicker said Saturday. “It's kind of been institutionalized in my mind, and I don't want to get political because PACG is not political, but as an individual, I see things happening that really scare me, and I hope, and I think people have a lot of common sense.”
Taking away DEI programs
Dismantling DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs nationwide is a way to exclude people, she noted.
“Everybody should be on merit, but you should also consider, not use merit to exclude. That happened for decades,” Unsicker said. “They'd say merit, but if two pretty equally qualified people, one Black, one white, the white one would always get it, or sometimes the less qualified person would get it. I think merit's an excuse. And DEI was a wonderful thing.
“It means that we just accept each other. All our varied melting pot Americans are accepted in this country,” she said. “That's all DEI was. It goes by our Constitution. And now they've rolled that back. It's just almost like we— fascism is closing in on us, and it's scary to me.”
Glenda Guster of Davenport, a 66-year-old friend of Unsicker, has been retired since 2019 from working for the state of Iowa, in criminal justice and small claims.
“We're just hoping that somebody, if it's only one or two people, think about equality for everyone. So I think it's working. I really do. I believe this country is more people that's for equality and racial justice than is against it. That's in my heart,” Guster said.
She said taking away DEI programs is hurtful.
“It's very hurtful because we're not asking for a handout. We just asking for opportunity,” Guster said. “That's how I look at it. I don't want you to give me anything. I just want you to give me an equal opportunity to go for the same job as somebody else that looks different from me. So that's all I ask. I don't ask for special treatment.”
She agreed it’s not hard coming out every Saturday of the year, even in winter.
‘It’s not to me because I feel like I'm coming out here for a purpose,” Guster said. “It is 30 minutes, it's cold, but it's only 30 minutes.”
More people gathered this June 13th because of the anniversary, she noted.
“I really enjoy these people. A lot of these people out here today are people from a different group because it was just a couple of us that's really out here faithfully,” Guster said. “I think with the anniversary they want to come and support us.”
For passersby, she hoped “it will start a conversation about equality. See, that's a big one for me, and justice,” she said. “So I'm hoping that by us being out here that they would stop and think, you know, and maybe how they treat other people. And let's have a conversation about that. So that's the main thing to me.”
Thode (who’s retired from working in insurance claims and audits) would like to see Democratic state auditor Rob Sand become new Iowa governor this November, and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg become president in 2028.
“You gotta follow the money,” she said of Sand. “You gotta see where it's being misspent and you gotta see where you can spend it better. And when they start in Iowa, when they started to hide access to the governor about auditing the money trail, that's uncalled for. That's what an auditor, a state auditor, is to do. So I think, I think he has a good understanding of what he needs to run on.”
As progressives, PACG empowers people to take action for positive change and social justice by coordinating a network of community forums and events aimed at educating and engaging citizens to work for the common good of all. Its core values are Social Justice, Empowerment, Diversity, Sustainability and Community.
For more information, visit the Progressive Action for the Common Good website at www.pacgqc.org.
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