Organisers aim to make Black Lives Matter movement stronger in Peterborough

One of the organising team, 26-year-old Saskia Cole, a fashion stylist from Peterborough, described the protest as a great success.

“We organised this event because we feel black lives matter. It is time to change... change the way society looks at us.

“A lot of people, even some in my own family, say they don’t see colour. We need people to acknowledge white privilege.

“People need to see the issues we are faced with, it is a systematic issue. We are not given the same opportunities. Society needs to change.”

Saskia said that organisers were delighted with the turnout and with the respectful way the event had been conducted.

She added: “We had a really successful turnout. Everyone was really respectful there was no violence, it was peaceful.

“What was really beautiful was the range of people there. We had many speakers, an Asian man, black, mixed, white it was really mixed and diverse.”

She said the next steps in the campaign would be to involve other groups, organise talks and school visits.

“Some people told us it was the biggest turnout they had seen for 40 years,” Saskia added. “We have that reach on social media and we want to continue to get the message out there.

“We want to keep doing live panels on instagram, we want to make this group a proper organisation. We have also had other committees talk to us and they said it would be good to have younger voices involved.

“We want to keep going forward, we would like to keep doing talks and approach schools. The future of this in Peterborough is strong.”