Four months ago, this section of Hollywood Boulevard was home to a lush red carpet, flashbulb-popping photographers and the world’s most glamorous actors and filmmakers as they arrived for the 92nd Oscars ceremony. Today, National Guard service members wearing combat armor and brandishing assault rifles stood in the same spot alongside a line of military transports, looking like occupying soldiers from a dystopian movie.
Several blocks away, thousands participating in a Black Lives Matter were intense but peaceful—chanting “No Justice, No Peace” and “Black Lives, They Matter Here!” while drivers honked support. Other times, the mass of protestors simply shouted a call and response with the name of George Floyd, the handcuffed African-American man whose video-recorded death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer sparked the nationwide uprising.
In addition to the estimated tens of thousands who were there in person, imagery from the protest and photos of the soldiers expanded the reach of the protest to the whole world via social media. Some used their posts to urge people living near the neighborhood to join them, while others used Twitter for logistics, warning that police were blocking their ability to merge with other groups along certain intersections.
Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti initially resisted the idea of calling the National Guard to the city, but just hours after making that declaration on Saturday he asked California governor Gavin Newsom to send 1,000 troops, following looting and vandalism along shops on Melrose and The Grove mall.
The troops were also arrayed in front of Hollywood Boulevard in front of the historic Chinese Theatre, world famous for its countless movie premieres and courtyard of concrete-embedded handprints from stars dating back to Hollywood’s golden age. The line stretched down the block in front of the Kodak Theatre, site of the annual Oscars telecast, and the Hollywood & Highland shopping center.
It’s also the location of the underground Metro stop in the neighborhood, a critical transportation hub for workers commuting by rail to and from downtown Los Angeles.
Demonstrators came to a stop after meeting with a blockade of LAPD officers at one intersection and began chanting: “Kneel With Us! Kneel With Us!” The officers remained in formation and did not join them.