STRAIT AREA – The tone of two protests designed to call attention to the Black Lives Matter movement took on a new dimension in mid-June, following the deaths of two indigenous New Brunswick residents at the hands of police.

The communities of Mabou and Port Hawkesbury were already scheduled to hold anti-racism events on June 13, with the Mabou Community Anti-Racism Rally and the Strait Area Black Lives Matter Rally and March scheduled just hours apart.

However, the deaths of Chantel Moore and Rodney Levi – with the latter occurring one night before the two Strait area rallies – weighed heavily on the minds of the estimated 150 people that gathered at the Mabou Athletic Centre grounds on Saturday afternoon, and the 70 people that took to the streets of Port Hawkesbury only a few hours later.

Mi’kmaq representatives called for justice at both events, with Waycobah First Nation band councillor Steven Michael Googoo decrying what he described as the systemic racism plaguing the RCMP and society in general during the Mabou rally. Later, Waycobah fiddler Morgan Toney played and sang the Mi’kmaq Honour Song in Port Hawkesbury to help ease the wounds after what he described as “a rough week for our people.”

Also in attendance in Mabou were two organizers of a Black Lives Matter rally that had drawn a healthy crowd to the streets of Sydney only a week earlier, Darnell Kirten and Selah Best. The latter said she was fearful for the safety of her own children in the wake of the May death of George Floyd during an altercation with police in Minneapolis.

Floyd’s death was also on the minds of rally organizers in Port Hawkesbury, who urged those in attendance to “take a knee” for eight minutes and 46 seconds – the exact length of time now-dismissed Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck while the latter repeatedly gasped, “I can’t breathe.”

The Port Hawkesbury event was sparked by two siblings from the town, Sasha and Talen Repko, who held their own Black Lives Matter protest eight days earlier in a three-hour trek from Auld’s Cove to the Port Hawkesbury RCMP detachment.

Also speaking in Port Hawkesbury were Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton and Cape Breton-Canso MP Mike Kelloway, who drove to Port Hawkesbury after taking part in a Mi’kmaq “Healing Walk” in Membertou First Nation, just outside of Sydney, only a few hours earlier.