By Dani Tietz
dani@sjodaily.com
Wednesday began as any typical Wednesday for St. Joseph’s Jon Arteaga .
He woke up at his mom’s house, just sitting around.
But on this Wednesday, there was a spark inside him, suggesting that he needed to do something to show that people in St. Joseph support the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I had gone to the protest in Champaign on Monday,” Arteaga said. “I just thought that it was just such an important thing to have such a peaceful protest after the looting that happened on Sunday. The juxtaposition of the two was just so powerful.”
“I thought, why does it have to end in Champaign? It needs to go farther than that.”
Arteaga notified his parents that he would go out to the four way stop of IL-150 and Main Street to peacefully protest.
The 2014 graduate of St. Joseph-Ogden High School, where 96-percent of students were white, said that since returning home after being gone for five years sees changes happening in the community. According to the Illinois Report Card, the student population at SJ-O is more diverse than when Arteaga graduated: the student population is currently 93-percent white.
The five hours that Arteaga spent outside with a few of his classmates had its discouraging moments. Some people passing by held their hands out the window with a thumbs down. But, David said that the response was overwhelmingly positive.
“The support was just mind blowing to me,” Arteaga said. “I just really didn’t realize how many allies there are in this town. So I was just very overwhelmed with the amount of love that we got.”
“A ton of people just drove by to raise their fists in solidarity. They dropped off water and snacks. Many people were like, ‘I wish I could join you, but I have to go to work.’” It was very heartwarming for sure and getting that response on social media just immediately made me realize that people want to protest, they want to do these things, they just need somebody to organize them.”
A conversation in a local Facebook page, St. Joseph, IL-Information & Community Events showed Arteaga that there was a desire to have something more formal planned so that others could congregate for the same reasons.
The St. Joseph Peaceful Protest for Equality will be held on June 5 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the four-way stop on the side of the street that is owned by the St. Joseph-Ogden School District.
Being a white man organizing this protest has been difficult, though.
“This isn’t about me,” he said.
Over the last 12 hours Arteaga has reached out to people of color to see if they wanted to join forces with him to organize the event or speak during the protest.
“We’re currently in talks with trying to figure out who our speakers will be,” he said. “Of course, we want people of color, particularly black people to be our speakers because we don’t want to speak for them.
“As it stands right now we don’t have anybody. We’ve been reaching out. People are very intimidated, they don’t want to, or they feel pressured, and we don’t want them to feel like that either.”
Arteaga said that he has found comfort, though, from the willingness of black residents encouraging him and helping him plan the event.
“I’m not speaking for them,” he said.
“That’s not my position. My position is to have my privilege be their weapon, to be their megaphone.”
“I value black voices above my own. And that’s something that I want to make sure is at this protest. I’m working so hard to find people (of color).”
A few of Arteaga ’s classmates who identify with more than two races are working behind the scenes.
“They’re giving us valuable insight. They’re helping to inform our decisions,” Arteaga said.
“They have told us that it would be okay for us to speak there, but only speak on how white people can do better.”
An African American woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, also connected with Arteaga to say that he is doing the right thing; the same thing she and others have worked on doing in St. Joseph for decades.
“Apparently a white male was what was required to break through this wall that she’s been trying to break so many times for 30 years,” Arteaga said.
Although Arteaga is currently focused on the event that will take place in 24 hours, he also knows that any protest just needs to be a beginning point for real change.
After leaving St. Joseph-Ogden, Arteaga went on to study literature at Illinois State University. He had his sights set on returning to his hometown to teach English.
“When I started making this protest tomorrow so many people of color reached out to me personally and said that they just really really want us to address the school. They want to make sure that their kids are safe and that they are represented in the coursework.”
An avid reader, Arteaga believes that part of the answer can be found through literature.
“You don’t have to be reading all of these dead white authors all the time,” he said. “They can be substituted with all of these diverse authors with Queer authors,Black authors, Latino authors. We can diversify. I think changing that up will have a little bit of a ripple effect; that’ll open people’s minds.”
Friday’s event will include a poem by Langston Hughes, a Black American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist.
Arteaga believes that St. Joseph and Ogden residents working together towards changing the systemic racism that continues to be prevalent both nationwide and at the local level could be the next moves.
This afternoon Arteaga connected with St. Joseph Mayor Tami Fruhling-Voges to hear her thoughts and vision for the community.
“There have been so many changes that have occurred since I’ve been gone, so I really want to know where she’s at,” he said.
“Now that I moved back home and plan on living here for a while, I’m wanting to get a grasp on how the community is, where our leadership’s mind is at, and how they feel about the types of issues.”
He was also hoping that the conversation would put her mind at ease about his intentions with the protest.
With fears that there may be looting and rioting like Sunday’s events in Champaign in rural towns and with rumors that groups from larger cities, like Chicago, would stop in small towns in East Central Illinois as they travel from Champaign to Danville, Arteaga wants the community to know that what he has planned will be peaceful.
St. Joseph Jim Page, who works for ILEAS (Illinois Law Enforcement Alert System), re-iterated that the rumors of Antifa coming to small communities are unwarranted.
“I can tell you that one of our biggest challenge is tracking down and separating false Internet rumors from actual intelligence. While anything is possible – as far as we know, it is not true,” Page wrote Monday.
“Having said that, in these challenging times it is always best to be prepared and watchful. Keep an eye on your neighbors, pay attention to your surroundings – all things that we should be doing every day anyway.”
Arteaga said his message is peace, though.
“Even in the detail of the event itself on Facebook I put, ‘If you see anybody acting violent or speaking violently, tell them to stop. Tell them that’s not okay.’
“We want this protest to be peaceful and impactful,” he said.
It is not lost on Arteaga that the world is also still in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He has instructed everyone to wear masks and socially distance during the event.
Currently, Arteaga is looking for donations of water, snacks, hand sanitizer and masks. He also asks that people bring signs, one for themselves and one for someone else.
“We need this to be loud,” he said.
Through this protest, Arteaga wants people of color to know that St. Joseph and Ogden are lifting them up.
“We should be doing everything we can to make them feel they’re safe so that they can live the American dream that everybody wants to live.”
