george floyd protests

Fort Worth Couple Says They Just Want to Be Heard

Joshua and Allison Lewis have attended every protest in Fort Worth after the death of George Floyd and say they want to promote peace.

NBCUniversal, Inc.

For the last several nights the majority of protesters in Fort Worth have marched peacefully as they express their anger and grief over the death of George Floyd.

Allison Lewis and her husband, Joshua, have attended the marches every night.

“We love Fort Worth, we’re citizens of Fort Worth we want the city to grow, not go down, so we just want a peaceful protest we want people to hear our voices, it’s important," Joshua said.

The couple are college sweethearts and have three kids together under the age of 11. Their family also happens to be mixed, Allison is white, and her husband is black.

“It’s important to me because like I said, this is my husband and I’m not going to allow him to be another hashtag. I’ve got a son and he’s not going to be one either and I don’t want any other African American, black, brown, no other family to experience what George Floyd’s family is going through," Allison said.

She said on Sunday they marched with the United My Justice group toward West 7th Street.

 "It was a beautiful moment, when you look across and see people over there that are here for the same reason you are, and you guys are coming together,it was amazing," Allison said.

The couple said once they got to the bridge, they saw a line of Fort Worth Police Officers.

According to police, they heard from some attendees that people were going to "tear up West 7th," and that's why they formed a barricade preventing people from crossing over.

Officers had a standoff with protesters for several hours. At one point the protesters took a knee and Allison said they asked officers to join. She said their goal was for people to hear them chanting.

“We want to reach as many people as we can if we can go down 7th street and we can engage and let the people know who are sitting out on the patios that we are here and we want change," Allison explained.

The standoff lasted for several hours and police said around 10:15 p.m. some people started throwing frozen water bottles and fireworks at them and that's when they used flash bangs and tear gas.

“We saw officers rush the crowd, they didn’t even warn us or anything they just rushed the crowd and that gave us it’s time to go and then we heard 'boom, boom," Joshua described.

Allison believes the moment became tense because of the steps police took to disperse the crowd, but she said she did recognize there were some who may have had ulterior motives.

"I did notice there were people who would try to instigate some things, there was some bickering going on and trying to figure out are you here with us or are you here to start a problem. We are a little bit on edge and sensitive to that and we’re not going to allow it," she said.

The couple took off before the could feel the effects of the tear gas, but said they didn't think it was necessary.

I hope that they hear us I hope that they know that we want to be peaceful that everything that happened prior to the tear gas was peaceful. I want people to be able to tell the difference between the two," Allison said.

They said ultimately they want to see local leaders march with them.

"What needs to happen tonight, a leader, Betsy Price a leader form Fort Worth needs to come out and let us know that they’re with us, not against us," Joshua said. “We need officers to take the badge, the helmet off, put the guns down, and let us know that you are with us not against us.”

The group, United My Justice said on Sunday night they tried to tell people to leave the bridge to avoid any confrontation with police. The group said it believes people who cause problems were from outside the city.

Contact Us