BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

POTSDAM -- An organizer of a Back the Blue parade planned for Saturday, Aug. 15 says it is to show appreciation for first responders and isn’t intended as a counter-protest to the local Black Lives Matter movement.

The parade will line up on Bay Street at 11 a.m. that day and start at noon. The planned route is to go left onto Pierrepont Avenue, down Main Street on Market Street, over to Pleasant Street, right onto Waverly Street, left onto Broad Street, right onto Leroy towards the Civic Center and finish at Ives Park for a rally and speeches.

“We’ve got a number of fire departments, a couple of rescue squads. We’ve got quasi-commitments from a number of politicians from both parties,” said Joseph Gallagher, who is helping to organize the event.

He declined to name specific participants in case they don’t show up.

“We’re not protesting anything. All we’re trying to do here, is for lack of a better term … to recognize the job that law enforcement, rescue squads, fire departments, do,” he said, adding that he also wants healthcare workers to participate.

He said he is aware that the parade is occurring within the larger national context of the Black Lives Matter movement sparking a reconsideration of the relationship between race and power structures.

“We’re not trying to stick our thumb in someone else’s eye. We’re trying to make this go off respectfully and peacefully,” he said. “Anybody with differing opinions is more than welcome to come and celebrate with us … Jokingly, I’ve said to several people ‘this is like karaoke night in America here. It’s our turn to sing.’”

Black Lives Matter Potsdam is planning a separate demonstration during the parade.

“I’m sorry this Black Lives Matter group thinks they’ve had a bad experience. I’m not gonna deny this has happened in other places. This isn’t Chicago. This isn’t New York City,” Gallagher said. “Sometimes what you need to do is walk through the cemeteries and see if there are any tombstones that says ‘killed by a cop.’ You’re not going to find any in Northern New York because it doesn’t happen, it won’t happen.”

“This (parade) is one of these deals where we’ve all been remiss in recognizing. This is not being completely driven by today’s happenings. It is to a degree. It’s long overdue to recognize we have some very, very good people … that are there to help people. And they do help people on a regular basis,” Gallagher said.

He said he doesn’t want the parade and rally to be a political event, but recognizes he can’t stop campaigning that may happen around the event.

“If that happens on this Saturday, as long as they’re not standing in front of the gazebo and passing that stuff out, I don’t care,” he said.

Gallagher said his motivations for the event are also partially driven by first responders who showed up in May when his wife was going through chemotherapy and suddenly became unresponsive. He said police were the first to show, followed by the rescue squad. His wife ended up dying, but he says he still applauds those who showed up and acted with “military precision.”

“They do that all the time, every time, for everybody. It’s commonplace for these guys,” Gallagher said. “It’s cops in general. They’re there to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done.”

The Black Lives Matter group plans to organize in front of the Potsdam Post Office on Elm Street. They are calling their demonstration “Blue Lives Don’t Exist Black Lives Do.”

On the event’s Facebook page, the description says, “First responders and our military men and women past and present are very important in our everyday lives. And we are very grateful for them and thank them. We are not anti police we are anti police brutality and killings etc. We won't allow law enforcement to continue to target, brutalize, kill, lie on, frame or violate black people and [people of color]. We will also not tolerate law enforcement that does nothing to protect and get justice for black people and POC. We will meet at the post office at 12:00pm. We will remain peaceful, so if you can't do that then don't come. We will let our signs do the talking. We will take a knee. BLM Potsdam wants to build a positive relationship between law enforcement and the black and POC communities in our village and throughout St. Lawrence County. We're not saying that only black lives matter, (because EVERY LIFE should matter) we're saying treat us like we do matter.”