This speaker is sharing during the 3rd protest march on Beacon that happened on June 6, 2020. The march started at Pohill Park, wound all the way down Wolcott, taking a right toward the river, over the bridge above the train track, and ending at the land stage at Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park.

To bring this story out of the video and into words for more to access, A Little Beacon Blog has transcribed this story as best we can, as close to the spoken word as possible. To give you context, we indicate where different actions took place, like applause or movement. We highly encourage you to watch this spoken in the video, so that you can feel the moment and the words and remember it forever as it helps you make future decisions. You can listen and watch this story in our Instagram here.

BEGIN

Good afternoon, everybody.

Malcolm X said: “My accomplishments will outweigh all my personal and human weaknesses.” Please keep that in mind as I speak to you.

I feel obligated to share my story. My name is Reuben Simmons, known by most people in this community as Yogi. Coach Yogi. I coach Beacon Pop Warner. I coach Beacon Hoops. I see some of my players out here. I went to South Avenue, Rombout, and graduated from the OLD High School. I got my Associates degree from Dutchess Community College in Criminal Justice. I got my Bachelors Degree in Sociology from the Catholic University of America located in Washington DC.

I wanna thank the organizers for the protest on Monday and this protest today. Two peaceful protests that I’m proud to have in my city. I didn’t see pictures of looting or any broken windows or anything that caused any destruction.

I also wanna give a thanks to all the police officers. I see the City of Beacon, I see possibly state troopers, and I see also the Town of Fishkill. They helped block the roads for us to have that peaceful march and I know that we’re having this battle with the officers. It’s not all officers so I would like to thank them also.

I wanna share a story with you. Which means I’m gonna have to get real with you. Everything I announced, that all sounds good. I got kicked out of Beacon Hoops. I had a bad attitude. I went to Albany for a semester. Just like my brother Ali talked about. Albany wasn’t a place for people who came from Beacon. Beacon was a great place.

Beacon was so unique and I always say that. Albany taught me something that I was taught at South Avenue that I just didn’t know. I am mixed race. My mom is Italian-Irish and my dad is Black. South Avenue, they wanted to send me to a school called Beta, and I wanted to go. I fought every day. They said that’s what you can do at Beta. It was Mr. Vorbach (crowd sourced spell check needed), my principal. A white man. An older white man, who said: “He’s not goin’. And I was upset. I thank him.

In 1st grade, we had the school staff come in each classroom and count every kid by their race. Miss Kim Faison, she saunters in my classroom. Everybody feared Kim Faison…Great lady. She asked all the white kids to stand up. I go to stand up. But I’m halfway standing up. She looks at me and says “Not you.” She asked all the black kids to stand up, then she looks at me and said, “Now you.”

I didn’t pay attention to these two lessons in elementary school but it caught up to me when I went to Albany. I was walking with one of my best friends, a white guy. He was drinking a beer. I wasn’t into beer then, not drinking. Cops pull over. Tell us to stop. I ain’t doin’ nothin’. I keep walking. He’s talking to me and my friend. My friend tells the officer, “Oh officer, I apologize.” He said, “I’m not taking to you.” Grabs me by the back, puts a baton to me.

Now I knew I had something illegal in my pocket, so I knew I shoulda ran, but I wasn’t doing anything. Whatever, I’ll take the consequences. I get to the station. They asked me “What’s your name?” Reuben Simmons. “Where you from?” I’m from Beacon. “What’s your race?” I studied criminal justice. I knew white people get lesser charges. And I am white. I’m just as white as I am black. I’m white. That officer tells me, HE tells ME, “You’re either Black or Hispanic.” I said, ‘What does that mean?’ He said, “Don’t tell me you’re white.”

I grew up in a single parent household. My mother. How you gonna tell me I ain’t white, besides the fact that I’m labeled that way in society? In a community that I wasn’t even accepted in the black community. I wasn’t accepted in a white community. By the time I got to high school, I had to find my own lane. And it just so happens DMX dropped that same year, so, self explanatory. So I’m a let anyone who’s mixed race in here, in the eyes of the law, in the eyes of society, you ain’t white. You black. And that is wrong. That’s why I’m proud to be here today and see this mixture of races here today. Because I know different races go through it, and different religions go through it.

I started an organization called I AM BEACON. Today it’s a 501-c3 non-profit organization established in the state of New York. One of my biggest supporters is the Key Food grocery store. And they get the same thing because they’re Muslim. It hurts my heart to speak to you at this time because of the circumstances that brought us all together. People who did not have to die. But this will be an opportunity that I think that we should not fold or let stop. That’s why I keep thanking the organizers of this protest because they’re young. I was young. Relatively still am.

I was labeled a leader in the community and in a union. I was blackballed Colin Kaepernick’d out of my union because I’m young and I got my own mind and my own vision. Because older people wanna tell you what to do, when to do it and how to do it and that’s not gonna happen, not in the generation of the new millennium. So the only thing I wanna offer to the young is to share my experience, to share my story, and just together put everything in a collaborative effort.

I’m gonna wrap it up. I was born in Beacon before the hospital closed. I was raised in Beacon in the 80s and the 90s when nobody wanted to be IN Beacon. I worked for this city, so I see the racial inequality from within. I already told you I was a union leader. I served 18 months as a Superintendent in the Highway [Department]. Union management. And for the last 3 years, I’ve been taking on a personal battle that I’m not gonna give up on. Because it’s affecting me. I see it affecting other people. I wanted to stand up for other people but one thing you can’t do, you can’t fight for other people that don’t want to fight for themselves.

I’ve seen white workers bring guns into the workplace, knowing that we have racial tension and nothin’ get done. I seen white workers get upset about supervisor referring to the black workers as “the nigger” and they get transferred and put in another department to where they feel comfortable. I’ve been in meetings with the city, with 100% of the black workers there telling them their issues, and nothing getting done but more harassment, more retaliation, and more disciplines in their goddamn file.

I ain’t putting up with it no more. And as I look out in this crowd, if the support is there for what’s going on in this city, I’ll stand with you and I’ll stand with any organizers who’s willing to fight that battle.

Another thing I’m gonna take this opportunity to clear up: when I started I AM BEACON, there was all this hoopla on “Well I’m from Beacon because I’ve lived here.” “You’re not from Beacon, you’re from Brooklyn, you just moved here.” Understand my philosophy for I AM BEACON. The Why and the I is self accountability and self responsibility. I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you do, if you’re in this city, if you’re in this community, if you wanna volunteer, if you wanna get involved, I AM BEACON’s doors is open to you.

Last 3 years, the fights that I’ve been having internally, it ain’t from people who just got to Beacon. Let me give you a little bit of history. I was born in the 80s and 90s. Hip hop culture. Sex money and drugs. My parents, they were raised in the racial riots in this city. The 50s, 60s, and the race riots in 1970. If you were born and raised up in the mountains, you didn’t mess with the Blacks down in the city.

As this city had started to grow, I started to see where the problem was. it wasn’t old Beacon and new Beacon. it was certain people in Beacon who were upset that they weren’t getting the way that they had for the last 10, 20, 30, 40 damn years. And I don’t see a different Beacon. I see a built up Beacon, but I don’t see a different Beacon. Maybe I changed with the times. There is no old Beacon, new Beacon. There’s only one Beacon. For the action steps. Mayor Lee Kyriacou is here today. Somewhere…there he is. Monday night, he’s gonna have a council workshop talking about police policies. Tune in. Give them recommendations.

If there’s one thing that is a must, it’s a must, especially if you think you’re gonna get down with I AM BEACON. It’s action. Don’t tell somebody else what they need to be doin’. Stand right there next to them and do it with them. Second, register to vote. There’s people here that are gonna help you with that. And I stress it because that night in Albany, I lost my right to vote. So I never thought I could vote. It wasn’t till I got involved with the union. It wasn’t until I educated myself. My first time voting wasn’t until 2009 because I came through a generation of ‘my vote don’t matter.’ Oh, now that I’ve got a criminal record, I can’t vote. So now that’s my scapegoat.

You can vote, as long as you ain’t on papers. I don’t care what your past is because I got the same past as some of you. So I’m the example. I can vote now, and I do. and don’t get me wrong, sometimes I put in a blank ballot but I’m showing up.

Three: I heard at the last protest and I’m sure I’m gonna hear it today. There’s “Coffee With Cops,” there’s workshops. We wanna talk with cops. We wanna build a community relations. I’m glad that conversation is coming up because I was there 4 years ago. I AM BEACON had a separate committee called BEACON SPEAKS OUT when Trayvon Martin and the Ferguson rallies were going on. We did it. We sent the recommendations in to the police.

The #1: Community Policing. Get the out the goddamn car and start walking these streets. It barely happened. So no, I’m not interested in sitting down again. I’m a man of action. So if we’re gonna do it again, let’s just make sure our voices are really heard but that we hold them accountable.

I’ve seen a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I went through the process. I’m willing to be a resource. As I look at the council, there are new faces that I’ve never seen before, that I’ve never talked to before. This will be that opportunity. ‘Cuz too many times people just pass judgement on what the hell they read on Facebook and that is bullshit. I know we come to a generation of social media and social gangsters and ‘say whatever you want and you don’t get touched.’ That wasn’t my era. That’s why people didn’t talk the way they talk in the 80s and 90s.

But I understand. We gotta grow from that. This is a different style, it’s a different fight. When I came into the union, my street mentality was like ‘yeah, I need the numbers. I slap you, you come out your face.’ You can’t do that in politics, are you crazy, kid? But the philosophy the same, ‘where’s your numbers at?’ Your right to vote - that’s your handgun. Goin’ to the polls is what’s pulling the trigger. But nobody wants to go to the polls because they wanna stay online for new iPhones and Jordans, c’mon man, ya gotta say with me on this.

(interruption)

I wanted to meet with the organizers in private. But I couldn’t let you guys leave without letting you know what’s going on. I’m a big believer we can make change. I’m a believer it starts on the local level. Once you have your foundation, you can build from there. Are you guys ready to build? (Crowd cheers) Are you guys ready to build? (Crowd cheers) I’ll stand for anybody who’s willing to put in the footwork. Thank you. Once again, my name is Reuben Simmons, they call me Yogi.