Belkis Teran walked over to the microphone to face nearly 100 people. Then she spoke. On Saturday, Jan. 18, along the stretch of the Atlanta Beltline closest to the Old Fourth Ward skatepark, the mother of the late Esteban “Tortugita” Paez Teran shouted “Viva, viva Tortuguita” and “Stop Cop City.”
Teran, currently residing in Panama, flew to Atlanta this weekend to speak at what was being billed as a “Day of Resistance” rally about having faith in the human race and believing that people can do what’s right if they work together. “Each one of you is important to me even if I don’t know your lives,” she said. “We have a shared purpose. We have to get strong, and the way to get strong is to heal.”
Belkis said she has been receiving positive messages from people in Atlanta through her social media accounts and added that she is dedicating the rest of her life to this movement.
“I think we have a lot to teach about his life,” Belkis said of her late son’s life as a member of the resistance to the building of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, more popularly known as “Cop City.”
Belkis said she admired the way her son was committed to the movement before he was killed by Georgia StatePatrol on January 18, 2023.
Other members of the “Cop City” resistance were in attendance and spoke of continuing the work that does not seem to be working. The center has been built for the most part and is scheduled to be open to the public this year.
“This is not a time for us to be dismayed or afraid,” said Mary Hooks of the Movement for Black Lives. Hooks said there are people at home feeling afraid of what is to come after former United States President Donald J. Trump is inaugurated back into office on Monday afternoon. “Fascism has been here, friends. They are literally cutting down the lungs of Atlanta.”
“Stop Cop City” rallies fell off of the front page of local newspapers and out of the A-block of local news programs after the presidential election heated up in mid-summer with the Democratic nomination of United States Vice President Kamala Harris.
Representatives from the Refaat Alareer Mobile Library, which refers to itself as a traveling volunteer-run liberation library on its Instagram page, were also in attendance loaning people books. A young man who only identified himself as Keith to The Atlanta Voice was also giving away books, but these books were from his personal library. “I’ve got too much stuff,” said Keith, who revealed he plans to move soon.
While hundreds, maybe thousands of people made their way up and down the Beltline during the rally, one spectator stood watching with two of Keith’s books now in his possession. Malik Roberts said he was in protest of the upcoming presidential inauguration.
“I’m hers because [expletive] Trump,” he said. “The good news is that there are marches like this one going on all over the country.”
Similar to many “Stop Cop City” rallies over the past two years, the topics of interest and focus tend to shift depending on who you talk to. Belkis, however, was focused on one thing: her late son’s legacy.
“I am here because we need to heal,” she said. “Love is action. Love is healing.”
