Black Lives Matter protest in Nipomo: ‘A great day in our town’s history’
Anthony Gonzalez was working the night shift at a McDonald’s in Santa Maria when the question came to him: “When my kids ask me, ‘What did you do during the movement?’ what am I going to say?”
Now he has an answer.
Gonzalez, 18, organized a Black Lives Matter protest in Old Town Nipomo on Thursday that drew around 150 people — most of them young, many of them people of color.
It was an ambitious move that came together in just two days — “spur of the moment” was Anthony’s description. It wasn’t just the first protest the Nipomo High grad had organized; it was his first protest, period.
It also was a rare event for the small town at the southernmost end of San Luis Obispo County — a fact that wasn’t lost on the marchers.
“This is a great day in our town’s history,” said Josh Gennoe-Sundberg, a young African American man who took a turn at the mic to describe a harrowing incident that happened to him a few years ago.
He was in his own backyard in Nipomo, he said, when he was tackled by six officers who were responding to a caller who had seen Gennoe-Sundberg walking in the neighborhood, and was concerned by his mere presence there.
“I was fighting for my life,” he told the crowd.
It wasn’t until one of the officers recognized Josh from a ride-along that he was released, he said.
There were other impromptu speeches, along with eight minutes of silence in honor of George Floyd and, of course, marching and chanting — “This is a peaceful protest We will not be stopped!” — was a frequent refrain.
There was a reason for that: There had been several ugly threats posted on social media prior to the march.
“They better be peaceful or Nipomo is going to stand up to them because no one else has,” was one.
“If you loot we gonna shoot,” was another.
There was a heavy police presence throughout the afternoon event, which coincided with a march in San Luis Obispo.
There were a couple of CHP units, and sheriff’s deputies on bicycles and quads escorted the marchers as they streamed past local landmarks like Jocko’s Steakhouse, where a line of bikers stood in stony silence, and the VFW post, where Vietnam veteran Rusty Hobbs was among those watching.
He said he’d never seen anything like it in Nipomo. “Never, ever in Nipomo,” he said.
There were a few hecklers along the route who shouted things like “All lives matter!” but they were far outnumbered by passing motorists who honked their horns and flashed peace signs.
At one point, a guy in a white truck flying a giant Trump flag passed by and shouted, “Love you guys! Love you all!”
Gonzalez said some of the hecklers approached him after the march, apologized and thanked him for keeping the event peaceful.
He’s happy with how things went.
“This really touched me a lot ... the amount of people who showed up. ...The peace was kept — that was beautiful.”
Gonzalez has more plans: Perhaps another march in Nipomo, on the other side of the freeway. Maybe even a monument to the Black Lives Matter movement in Nipomo, along the lines of the town’s Cesar Chavez monument.
Gonzalez, who now lives in Santa Maria, described Nipomo as a small town “with a good amount of racism,” but he was feeling optimistic after Thursday.
“Maybe,” he said, “we can see some changes.”
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 1:54 PM.
