Camden Salon Owner Sparks Protest Heard ‘Round the Nation, Including Obama
Tap Into Camden
June 2, 2020
CAMDEN, NJ — Sitting in her room last Tuesday, Yolanda Deaver, 36, took a moment before pressing play on the George Floyd video. She had caught a short snippet earlier that morning but happened upon its entirety while scrolling through her phone.
The 46-year-old Floyd, his neck held down by a Minneapolis police officer’s knee, could be heard saying, “I can’t breathe” multiple times, as well as “Mama” and “Please” before dying on the curb as other officers looked on.
“It made my heart sink,” Deaver told TAPinto Camden. “Watching it there alone literally brought tears to my eyes and filled me with rage. I have sons. I have uncles and nephews and to think something like this could happen to any of them.”
The local business owner was initially set on traveling nearly 1,200 miles from Camden to Minnesota to join the latest heart of outrage over police brutality. She prompted her fiancé and other relatives to do the same.
“I wanted to go,” said Deaver, who has lived in the city since she was a teenager. “When I spoke with my family they’d seen a lot of destruction on TV and told me it was better not to go. ‘You might not make it back,’ they said. But I knew I had to do something.”