Black Lives Matter Protests and the First Amendment

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/us/black-lives-matter-protest.html

"We always must find ways to have peaceful demonstrations," said Martin Luther King III. 

    The term 'Black Lives Matter' hasn't always been the reference used for the topic, but the issue has been a constant problem since before Martin Luther King Jr.'s time.

    African American people and cultures deserve more than they are receiving.  The news article stated: "There was another demoralizing shooting of Black man by the police, another angry outcry in the streets, another disturbing trail of destruction that had the potential to overshadow the message of the need to end police violence and racism."  It breaks my heart that this has become so normalized. Shooting after shooting and riot after riot has me thinking when will this all end.  

    There have been multiple protests going on for decades, the worst my generation has seen has been this past year in 2020.  "In the two weeks after Mr. Floyd was killed in May, more than 2,000 protests were held across all 50 states.  The demonstrations were diverse, reaching both big cities and communities that were rural and overwhelmingly white."  I remember these few months very clearly, it was such a big deal that even COVID-19 almost forgot about in these months.  Which was all people could talk about before the protests happened. 

    Relating the overwhelming amounts of protests to the First Amendment is not hard in this case.  Almost all 6 freedoms are used in their protection from the police from preventing them from protesting.  The people who have been raving about the Black Lives Matter protests have a right to speech, press, assembly, and petition.  They are peacefully walking on public property preaching about equality and having more laws against police brutality and gun laws.  This type of First Amendment rights is condoned and protected.  Although, what the First Amendment does not condone or protect is when the protests get violent or start lighting buildings on fire and beating/killing people in the streets.  This type of protesting is against the law and that is when police/government involvement is needed. "The police say they have spent $6.7 million responding to the protests since May, and have been so overburdened that response times to nonemergency calls a take as long as 12 hours."