#ReclaimMLKPHL march organizers describe next steps

There's a disagreement about the size of the protest.

One of many banners carried in the ReclaimMLK march
Kelan Lyons

The Rev. Mark Tyler of Mother Bethel AME Church today was singing praises about the razor-sharp focus of yesterday's #ReclaimMLKPHL march through Center City streets.

“The messaging was very clear,” he says. “People walked away understanding that we are not just marching because we are angry or because we want justice in some vague way.”

ReclaimMLK is a national movement with three demands: an end to stop-and-frisk laws and the establishment of an independent police review board; the switch to a democratically controlled “local school system;” and a $15 an hour minimum wage law, in addition to the right to unionize.

Tyler, one of the event’s organizers, says those who participated left with a better understanding of the interdependence among the various demands the movement is making.

“The messaging could not have been better,” he said in a phone interview today.

Bishop Dwayne Royster, executive director of Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower & Rebuild (POWER), another key organizer, praised the diversity of the protesters, calling the cultural, religious, and age range of those who took part “absolutely astounding.”

Royster says he believes that diversity will be key in affecting legislative change.

Though police estimated yesterday’s turnout between 2,000 and 3,000, Tyler and Royster say the numbers were more than double the police projections.

“I am a pastor, so my job is to count people on Sundays,” says Tyler.

Marchers left the School District headquarters on North Broad Street, marched south around City Hall and then east down Market Street to Independence Mall.

At one point, Tyler stood outside of the Ritz Carlton Hotel where he claimed he could see protesters marching in every direction.

“No way that was just two- or three-thousand people… more like seven thousand,” he says.

The movement’s next steps, according to Royster, are to begin legislative efforts to push for change.

Royster says that various members of the movement are “immediately” working on setting up meetings with Mayor Nutter to end stop and frisk policies, to work on legislation to make sure a stronger civilian review board is established, and to support a referendum for a democratically elected school board. In addition, the movement also aims to attain legislation for a $15 an hour minimum wage.

ReclaimMLK leaders are planning to hold a closed-door meeting Saturday night at Mother Bethel Church for a debriefing about the march and a discussion of next steps.

The meeting is primarily for members of the Reclaim MLK coalition, but Tyler says he is open to accepting new organizations.

Tyler claims that, among other things, the meeting will strive to answer a number of questions, including, “How do we now move to put pressure in the right places to actually end stop and frisk, to actually get $15 an hour, to actually get a full-funding formula?”

“Yesterday was a march that is not to be viewed as an end, but it should really be viewed as a commencement,” he says. “It is a movement that I do not see ending any time soon.”