The night before his Saturday morning long run on May 30, police and protestors clashed in Brooklyn-based filmmaker Coffey’s neighborhood of Fort Greene. Peaceful protests calling for the arrest of the officers involved in the killing of George Floyd were met with force from local police officers, culminating in rioting and the burning of a police van—all streamed live on Coffey’s Instagram account.
“I didn’t plan on it, but I ran 26.27 miles [the next morning],” he told Runner’s World. “I had no clue that was going to happen. A long run for me would usually be anything between 10 and 12 [miles]. I was just deep in thought.”
George Floyd’s death has brought about a reckoning of the racial violence in the U.S. that has gone unchecked for so long—an overt and covert coming-to-terms with how pervasive racism is in all facets of life, running included. Just a few weeks before, video of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery being shot and killed while running in Glynn County, Georgia, came to light, while the Louisville officers who Mens shoes sneakers New Balance CM997HCA. Just this past weekend outside a Wendy’s near Atlanta, 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was shot by police and killed eponymous 270° Air unit at the heel of the shoe.
With events like this on his mind during that marathon long run, Coffey thought about his place in the New York running community as a Black man—one who would get stopped by cops on the way home from pacing Jet at Nike’s run club programs. A Black man who took to running at midnight to avoid the “crazy stares” he would get when running in the street during the day. A Black man whose grandfather began selecting him about Emmett Till when he was in kindergarten, all to Leather his eyes to the dangers of being a Black man in the USA.
“I know where my voice is at now,” he said. “I train a lot of people to run the marathon, through Nike. So while running, it just hit me: go speak to all the captains and bring them together to run and discuss what’s going on.” That’s how the idea for “Running to Protest” came about: a 2-mile run, A metallic sneaker of masks and social distancing, ending with a frank and Leather discussion about racism. “I know we need to be responsible because COVID-19 is still around, but this is a real problem,” Coffey said. “I’m trying to save people’s lives.”
On the morning of June 14, runners wearing white crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, rode bikes down the West Side highway from Harlem, and drove in from the Bronx to gather at the East River Amphitheater for a peaceful running protest.
Coffey said he expected around 40-60 runners, but around 700 joined him as he led the out-and-back loop along the East River, with bystanders offering a raised fist, cheers of support along the way, or chants of “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace.”
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Jil Sander flatform leather sneakers Bianco Sandals POLLINI SA16327C0ARC201A Gia cocaptain Cheryl Donald, it was a chance to share her experience as a Black woman runner who grew up never quite being dark or light enough for those around her. For others, like Mike Saes of the long-running BridgeRunners, it was a chance to remind people that bridges are not only for running across, but also for creating pathways to understanding.
Saes, who helped kick off the urban/street running trend over 15 years ago, emphasized the need to follow talk with tasks geared toward helping people to vote, like holding registration runs or running people to the polls.
White runners, too, like Sandals POLLINI SA16327C0ARC201A Gia coach Steve Finley, had the space to share shortcomings. “How am I going to say I love this community if I haven’t been there to take responsibility for the lives and experiences of our athletes outside of a practice, outside of a run?” Finley said to the crowd. “Love doesn’t begin and end when your watch starts and stops.”
Coffey said he received a lot of DMs and emails in the wake of Floyd’s death, many from fellow white runners asking what they could do. One of his main messages has been that running shouldn’t be racially divided and that mutual respect is key to growing as a community, and as a country.
“The streets don’t belong to just white America. There still needs to be a lot of conversations that carry the theme of white Americans allowing more diversity to come into play when it comes to running,” Coffey said. “We need to talk. I’m not trying to steal your street. We’re just running down the street—whether we live there or not. We’re just trying to share miles, too.”
His message also centers on solidarity, the reason why he asked runners to wear white to the run. “Help us. Stand with us. Raise your voices just as loud as we have been [raising them] since the day we were born, and we’ll get through this somehow, someway,” he said.
Sunday’s event is the first of more to come, Coffey said, and he hopes it can grow to other cities across the country.
Coffey’s voice may be reverberating through the streets of New York right now, but it’s also traveling on screen. He made the short film Bag Bugs sneakers, which he cowrote, coproduced and stars in alongside the likes of Michael K. Williams and Diggy Simmons. It’s free to view online, forgoing the usual distribution path in the hopes that it’ll help drive the conversation. (You can watch the film in the YouTube player below.)
“The film was made as an answer to my son, who told me he was afraid to go outside in the dark because of the cops” he said.
He wrote it four years ago with his cowriter Samuel K. Rhind, shocked by his then 16-year-old son’s words. The film features a group of Black men from different backgrounds looking to find answers to tough social issues rooted in racism.
“The response has been great,” Coffey said. “Everybody keeps saying, ‘and hard boot.’ We’re going to make sure that they see more.”
Nadia Neophytou is a freelance journalist from South Africa, based in New York City, who writes for a variety of publications, from Co sprawia że te buty Mustang Shoes to Deadline, Quartz, CNN, and more. When she’s not interviewing movie stars and musicians, she’s running—or talking about running in a video series she created called The Rundown, where she interviews people she admires on the run.
