On Monday, it will have been 20 years since St. Petersburg police shot and killed 18-year-old TyRon Lewis, a young African-American man, in south St. Petersburg.
It was an event that sparked rioting and put the city in the national spotlight.
Questions have since lingered over whether Lewis actually posed a threat to the public or the police officers who had stopped Lewis and a friend while they were driving on 16th Street, and to many his death has largely been seen as a symptom of a greater problem: that police — and white-dominant society in general — don't see African-Americans (and other minorities) as having the same level of value as whites; systemic racism.
And what results is scores of families torn apart and traumatized.
"It still hurts. I don't think that the pain will ever go away," said Deanne Lewis, TyRon Lewis' sister, at a press conference Thursday near the site where her brother was killed. "But we will continue to fight for justice."
She and members of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement plan to spend the evening of Monday, October 24 — the 20th anniversary of the killing — remembering Tyron Lewis at the intersection of 16th Street and 18th Avenue South, near where it took place. Activists are planning on independently renaming 18th Avenue South in his honor — with or without the city's permission.
It will be in honor of Lewis' memory, but also that of victims of police violence against African-Americans (many of them unarmed and not guilty or even accused of any crimes) everywhere, activists said, because no one else is going to recognize them.
"The African community is the only community that's actually going to uphold these names. The media has criminalized these Africans, criminalized the victims of police murder, and so the African community are the only ones who are going to raise up these Africans, understanding who they are and who they represent to our community," said Liu Kwayera, a member of the movement.
To have insignia near the site of Lewis' death will also serve as a reminder to police who drive around in the area that the community remembers the incident two decades on, and that tensions still exist between police and locals, activists said.
"It speaks to, one, the community hasn't forgotten what has happened, and it will never forget what has happened," Kwyera said. "And that the St. Petersburg police can't forget what happened. They have to look and turn on TyRon Lewis Avenue. They have to know they're going to TyRon Lewis Avenue. The have to remember what they've done. And the fight still continues…we will never let up until we have justice."
The group plans a vigil for October 24th at 7 p.m., when it plans to rename the street where Lewis' death set off a violent, historic chain reaction that now has parallels in cities throughout the country.
"It was a murder that would set up the St. Petersburg rebellions, an uprising of the African community, a time when the streets resembled Ferguson, Missouri. TyRon Lewis has since then become a household name," said Akilé Anai, also a member of the International People's Democratic Uhuru movement.
This article appears in Oct 20-27, 2016.