21 Poor People's Campaign demonstrators blocking traffic arrested in downtown Nashville

Natalie Allison | The Tennessean

Show Caption Hide Caption Arrests at Tennessee Poor People’s Campaign Protest Arrests at Tennessee Poor People’s Campaign Protest

A week after protesters were allowed to move from street to street blocking traffic in downtown Nashville, police on Monday changed course in their response.

Monday afternoon, the Metro Nashville Police Department arrested 21 demonstrators walking in the street after officers on bicycles formed a barrier at the intersection of Fifth and Gay streets to prevent them from moving forward onto James Robertson Parkway.

Last week: Poor People's Campaign protesters stall downtown Nashville traffic during rush hour

In their second of six weeks of scheduled demonstrations, protesters were taking part in the Poor People's Campaign, a movement that has branded itself as "a national call for moral revival" that builds on the work of the civil rights-era initiative by the same name.

"We are here in a spirit of nonviolence," said the Rev. Jeannie Alexander, director of No Exceptions Prison Collective in Nashville prior to the march, during which she was among those taken into custody. "This is a war, and this is a very old war, and if you don't understand this is a war, that's because you occupy a place of privilege."

Alexander described the war as one "against black and brown bodies."

As dozens of protesters made their way from Legislative Plaza down Charlotte Avenue and 5th Street bound for the Justice A.A. Birch Building, officers following alongside on them announced that anyone unwilling to be arrested must move onto the sidewalk.

Some did, though a group of protesters wearing yellow arm bands who had chained themselves together continued marching as they sang "we have nothing to lose but our chains."

"This group had the ability to disseminate its message last Monday, and they are free to continue to disseminate their message in a lawful manner, but will not be permitted to block the free passageway of their fellow citizens," said police spokesman Don Aaron after the arrested protesters had been transported for processing.

Bound for court building, Poor People's Campaign demonstrators arrested

The focus of this week's protest, associated with similar demonstrations being held in other cities around the nation, was on the connections between systemic racism, voter suppression, poverty and discrimination against immigrants, the Poor People's Campaign announced.

Protesters chained together — who had planned to surround the Birch Building before being stopped by law enforcement for walking in the street — wore papers pinned to their shirt with the labels of groups disproportionately affected by incarceration.

Nashville police make arrests of protesters in the Poor's People Campaign march downtown Police arrest protesters who were marching in the street of Nashville

After being arrested, officers loaded the protesters into a Davidson County Sheriff's Office van, where they were being transported to a mobile processing center on Lafayette Street to determine who could be cited and who would need to be booked in jail.

Each of the 21 were charged with obstruction of a passageway, while one of the demonstrators was also charged with resisting arrest. Ranging in age from 18 to 71, eight were from Nashville, six from Memphis, four from Chattanooga, and one each from Cleveland, Cordova and Ringold, Georgia.

"We believe in people being able to express themselves, and we try to be tolerant, but tolerance does have its limits. And today as they were marching down the middle of the street heading toward major roadways during the end of the business day, that limit was reached," Aaron said.

What is the Poor People's Campaign?

The campaign’s platform is large.

The Monday demonstrations were taking part in 40 days of nonviolent civil disobedience and direct actions, as well as voter mobilization and other activities. It ends June 23 with an event at the U.S. Capitol.

Along with hundreds of grassroots groups across the country, the organizers of the campaign are the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary and the Repairers of the Breach, a social justice organization founded by the Rev. William J. Barber II.

Barber is the architect of the Moral Movement that started with protests at the North Carolina state capitol in response to policies from a Republican-controlled legislature, spreading to other states.