I am writing in response to “Protest disruptions are outrageous” by Richard Willerton (Our Readers’ Views, June 24). The purpose of a protest is to get attention, to get noticed, and to let people know about your cause or issue. The most effective way to do that is to inconvenience people.
How effective would it be to protest in your backyard and not disturb the neighbors? How do we compare the inconvenience of getting home 30 minutes later to the suffering of African Americans and other marginalized groups for hundreds of years?
What would have happened if the Civil Rights protesters of the 1950s and 1960s didn’t stop traffic or conduct sit-down strikes at lunch counters? What if protesters to the Vietnam War had said that we don’t want to inconvenience anybody? We might still be there. But people have been willing to suffer jail and sometimes even death to call attention to mistreatment. These people should be honored and not complained about.
