It was a Sunday afternoon in January. Hundreds
gathered to protest what they considered rampant injustices in the
criminal justice system. Linked arm-and-arm, many marched through the
streets belting out, We shall overcome.
By most accounts it was a peaceful
demonstration, but the tone changed dramatically just after 4 p.m.
Soldiers, decked out in riot gear, pelted the crowd with gunfire and
tear gas. Chaos erupted. Ten minutes later, 13 people were dead,
according to the BBC; including several teenagers.
Ultimately, troops shot 26 unarmed civilians during the protest march against internment
- imprisonment without trial; a 14th died from his injuries months
later. Witnesses say many of the victims were marchers and bystanders
wounded by soldiers while fleeing the gunfire; some shot in cold blood
as they tended to the wounded.
This may sound like a typical scene from most anywhere in the
Southern United States during the mid 1950s to late 1960s - familiar
footage from say, Eyes On The Prize, the famed documentary
series on the civil rights movement; or maybe even moments from Black
Lives Matter demonstrations of current day.
Only these protestors were in Northern Ireland, in the Bogside area of Derry
to be exact, the shooters were British forces and the year was 1972 -
four years after American civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
had been assassinated outside a Memphis motel.
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