MOORESVILLE, Ind. — On the night before the Fourth of July, in the heart of downtown Mooresville, two groups of people stood on opposite sides of a street, each with different messages, each with a different rallying cry.
“Black lives matter!” shouted one group.
“All lives matter!” shouted the group in response.
One side brought mostly protest signs.
Several people on the other side, including a small group on a nearby roof of a business, had guns.
Mooresville police said they were aware of the men on the roof, who they said were on private property.
That was the scene that played out over several hours in this small Indiana town, population 9,700 and predominately White.
It came after more than 100 people in support of the Black Lives Matter movement brought their message to Mooresville as part of the March on the Suburbs.
“We’re actually trying to show the people who don’t usually see the protests in person, that we’re peaceful and we’re just fighting for equality. We’re protesting racism, something that everyone should be against,” said Lucas Maurizio from Bargersville, who said he arranged the protest in support of Black Lives Matter.
“There’s bad on both sides, in every culture. There’s always going to be racists. You’re not ever going to stomp that out,” said one man standing on the opposite side of the street from Maurizio.
That man didn’t want to give his name, but said he disagreed police brutality is an issue in this country for Black people.
“They are not getting killed unjustly,” he said, speaking about Black people.
“That George Floyd, yeah that was wrong. It should have never happened, but both sides are agreeing that that was wrong and those police officers, they’re being punished. So what more do they want?” he asked.
“I don’t want to be scared to leave my house at night,” said 19-year-old Gavin Evans, who is Black and grew up in Mooresville and played football at the local high school.
“Got a lot of tackles and stuff,” said Evans.
Now, some of the same people shouting at him from the opposite side of the street on this Friday night, Evans said, were the same people who used to shout for him when he made a tackle under the lights on a very different kind of Friday night in this town.
“How are you not going to support me?” Evans asked. “You grew up with me. You told me that you loved me, but you can’t stand with me? That’s what’s messed up."
“All lives matter, not just Black,” said Sheila Hodge, who owns the local bakery. “It’s not a matter of color. It’s a matter of who you are. It doesn’t matter, Black, White, purple. It matters, what’s in your heart."
Hodge said she disagreed with what happened to George Floyd, but didn’t think the video showing his death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer needed to be shown as much as it has.
“I think they’re playing it over and over again to get attention...If they would quit playing it, we wouldn’t have all this stuff going on,” she said, pointing to the group gathered across the street.
“We’re just trying to say to everyone, ‘Black lives do matter,’” said Maurizio.
“All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter,” he added.
“They say, ‘all lives matter,’ but there is a woman on that side doing racial slurs for a black man on this side, complete racism,” said 20-year-old Melissa McGuff, who grew up in Mooresville, but doesn’t live here now.
“I know how it is here. It’s ugly here,” said McGuff. “There’s racism here."
Town Council President Shane Williams said the media was to blame for that kind of narrative about Mooresville.
“I think a lot of media tries to portray us as just a racist place and I think we have a lot of reasonable people here,” said Williams. “You just have an issue, multiple issues going on here and people have different opinions as to how to solve them.
“I support everybody’s right to have an opinion. That’s what this country’s about and you’ve got to do it in a peaceful way and a way like this, I think it’s great,” said Williams.
The opposing views in Mooresville Friday are a microcosm of a larger debate surrounding issues of race playing out all across the country.
In this case, a street and police, standing in between both sides.
“They’re trying to tell us that we have to do what they want us to do and I don’t think that’s right,” said the same man who didn’t want to give his name. “They’re just here because they’re going to try and force their way and their doctrine."
13News asked what doctrine he meant.
“Well, like a socialist. I’m not 100 percent all of what it is, 'cause I don’t study it, but they’re all for everything being free, free college, you know? This is free. This is going to be free. Nothing’s free,” he said.
For Evans, standing across the street, the distance between him and those standing just a few hundred feet away seemed much larger in the town where he grew up.
“I don’t think they’re willing to listen...to listen to what we have to say,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘all lives matter,’ but they won’t come stand over here.
“That’s just how it is, I guess,” Evans said. “It’s just sad."