Parents protesting at Philandro's school, image via Twitter
On a sweltering afternoon in St. Paul, Minnesota the swampy July heat gave way to blue-gray rain clouds as a crowd of people—black, brown, white, young, old—filled the green space and playground surrounding the city’s J.J. Hill Montessori school.
People were gathering to mourn the loss of Philando Castile, an African-American man shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop on Wednesday, July 6.
Castile was a beloved member of the J.J. Hill school community, having worked there the past three years as a cafeteria staffer, and then a supervisor.
As gaggles of children crowded the slides, bridges, and platforms of the school’s playground equipment, parents, teachers and community members gathered near the stage that had been set up outside a school door. A helicopter chopped away overhead as the crowd leaned in to hear members of Castile’s family, and J.J. Hill staffers and parents, describe the person they had lost so violently, less than 24 hours before.
Sharon Freeman, a recently retired district administrator, told the crowd that initially she had struggled with the idea of speaking on Castile’s behalf because she had recently lost her own son.
“I feel your pain,” she called out, and then began sharing a story about Castile. Freeman described a time when, as an administrator, she had been sent to J.J. Hill to oversee a construction project that had thrown the school into disarray.Freeman was concerned that students would get their scheduled meals. Not to worry, Castile had responded immediately.
“‘Go,’” Freeman says he told her.
“‘I’ve got this. Every child will be fed.’”
“‘I’ve got this. Every child will be fed.’”
J.J. Hill parent, John Horton, also spoke, echoing Freeman’s memory of Castile as caring, competent, and quick to serve. “It says Montessori on the wall behind us,” Horton said, gesturing to a sign on the school’s brown brick exterior, “and (Maria) Montessori understood that children are the hope and future of mankind.” He went on to say that Castile, who was known as Mr. Phil at work, understood this, too.
“Phil was kind, peaceful, and had integrity,” Horton said emphatically.
Another J.J. Hill community member, teacher Anna Garnaas-Halvorson, also spoke about Castile, despite sounding too choked up to talk. She remembered a time when the school lost power, and kids couldn’t enter their lunch code numbers into the school’s computers. Castile didn’t skip a beat, Garnaas-Halvorson said, and got to work writing down every student’s six-digit number by hand, so that no one would miss their meal.
“I will never forget Mr. Phil,” Garnaas-Halvorson shouted out to the crowd, invoking his “big smile, with the radio on, getting food ready for 500 kids.”
It was clear, listening to speaker after speaker, that Castile, who readily gave “fist bumps and high fives” to J.J. Hill students, was an adored member of the school community. But the vigil held for him, and organized by the school’s parent-teacher group, left no doubt that he was perhaps first and foremost, a beloved member of a strong, close-knit family.
A cousin of Castile’s took to the microphone and told everyone that Castile “comes from a real rich family.” She wasn’t talking about money.
"When I say rich, I mean tight."
He was raised by a “wealth of strong men,” she told the rapt audience, and “he was a father figure to others.”
"When I say rich, I mean tight."
Like many of the speakers remembering Castile’s life on July 7—less than one full day after he was killed—Castile’s cousin, who introduced herself as Renita, seemed stunned. “We were just together,” she told the crowd, explaining that Castile’s extended family had gathered over the past weekend at a reunion in St. Louis.
After an hour or so of speakers, the hundreds of mourners filling the J.J. Hill schoolyard turned and took to the streets, behind members of Castile’s family. With strollers, signs and free bottles of water in hand, the crowd began marching towards the state governor’s mansion. There, amid shouts of “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace,” Castile’s memorial joined forces with the people already gathered there in protest over the most recent police killings—in Baton Rouge, and now St. Paul.
Sarah Lahm is a Progressive Education Fellow and blogs at Bright Light Small City.