Protestors march down Main Street on Saturday as part of the Freedom Fighters March.
                                 Kevin Carroll | Times Leader

Protestors march down Main Street on Saturday as part of the Freedom Fighters March.

Kevin Carroll | Times Leader

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<p>The march started at the old Volunteers of America thrift store and ended at Public Square.</p>
                                 <p>Kevin Carroll | Times Leader</p>

The march started at the old Volunteers of America thrift store and ended at Public Square.

Kevin Carroll | Times Leader

<p>State Sen. Art Haywood was the guest speaker at Saturday’s march.</p>
                                 <p>Kevin Carroll | Times Leader</p>

State Sen. Art Haywood was the guest speaker at Saturday’s march.

Kevin Carroll | Times Leader

WILKES-BARRE — Peaceful protests of police violence and brutality continued in Wilkes-Barre, as the 2020 Freedom Fighters held a march down Main Street to Public Square.

A crowd of protesters and allies gathered at the old Volunteers of America thrift store on Main Street around 2:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon.

Elijah Scretching, a GAR graduate and one of the members of the 2020 Freedom Fighters, explained that this group was formed to help bring about change right here in the Wilkes-Barre community, and Saturday’s march was in service of three main points.

“We’ve got to ban kneeholds and chokeholds,” Scretching said. “And there needs to be some sort of database that records police misconduct.”

Scretching and a few other members of the Freedom Fighters set up a speaker and a microphone right outside the store, and before the march, two speakers took the mic.

One was Sharee Clark, a member of the Freedom Fighters and a familiar face at Black Lives Matter protests. She was brief in her remarks, warming up the crowd for Sunday’s main speaker, state Sen. Art Haywood.

Haywood, who serves as a Democratic senator for Pennsylvania’s fourth district, recounted a tale in which he had been racially profiled by a real estate agent.

“I went in because my wife and I were looking to buy a home in the area. … I was told that the unemployment office was upstairs,” said Haywood, who worked as a lawyer before entering politics. “So I sued them and I won.”

Haywood also mentioned several pieces of legislation that will be coming to a vote on the Senate floor in the coming weeks, legislation that would ban chokeholds and crack down on excessive uses of force by police.

“I’ve been trying to get these passed for years,” Haywood said. “They’re finally looking at them now, and that’s all thanks to you all.”

For a while, it looked as though the weather wouldn’t cooperate with the group’s plan to march to Public Square, with a driving rain blowing through the area. But as quickly as the rain came, it was gone, and blue skies and sunshine were the scene as the Freedom Fighters marched down Main Street to the Square.

The chants were led by Exel Nalls, who was recognized in Haywood’s speech for his T-shirt which read: “Where do we go from here?”

“It’s nice that we’ve got this crowd and we’ve got some momentum, but it needs to continue,” Nalls said. “I’ve dealt with racism in my life, I’m used to it. But I don’t want my kids to have to go through it all over again.”