Porsha Williams after being hit with tear gas in Atlanta while protesting the death of George Floyd said Wednesday the experience has given her ‘another level of strength’.
The 38-year-old reality star and granddaughter of late civil rights leader Hosea Williams was protesting peacefully Monday with fiance Dennis McKinley, 43, when police fired off tear gas in their vicinity.
‘It was devastating to feel like I was out there trying to stand with my people, stand with our allies, and help them raise a message of hope and to be silenced and not able to breathe because of the gas bomb that was thrown,’ she told People.
Peaceful protest: Porsha Williams after being hit with tear gas while peacefully protesting in Atlanta said Wednesday that the experience has made her stronger
The Real Housewives Of Atlanta star in a video she shared on Instagram was seen running down the street and pouring water over her face as a result of the gassing, but she showed strong resolve afterward.
‘It won’t stop. Anybody who is out there now and they feel like they can’t move forward because of the mistreatment [by] the police and what they’re doing to us … I would say to them, stay focused on the cause,’ Porsha told People.
She added: ‘We are looking to get justice for George Floyd.’
Porsha said she was continuing to push through ‘with a heavy heart for everyone’ and said she was searching ‘to find a way to be most effective in this movement for Black Lives Matter.’
Williams appeared physically unscathed by the event, as her face was protected by a pair of over-sized black sunglasses, a grey baseball cap and a Louis Vuitton-inspired face mask
The Bravo star also sent her ‘love and condolences’ to the family of Floyd who died on May 25 at age 46 in Minneapolis after the unarmed black man was restrained by police while handcuffed in the street.
The Minnesota Attorney General’s office on Wednesday upgraded charges against former officer Derek Chauvin to second-degree murder after he was shown in video pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. The other three officers who were present during Floyd’s arrest also have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
All four officers were fired by the Minneapolis Police Department the day after Floyd’s death.
Inner circle: Porsha’s grandfather Hosea Williams is shown in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee with Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr and Ralph Abernathy on April 3, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel where civil rights leader King was assassinated the next day
Porsha said she did not immediately watch the video showing Floyd losing consciousness.
‘It was hard for me to gather myself and watch something and know that it was happening again to another black man,’ she said.
‘When I finally built up my own courage to watch it, it was heartbreaking. Literally everything within me wanted to fast-forward in order not to have to go through the agony that he was going through. But because he went through it, I felt that it was important for me to see it and feel all of it, to hear every cry, so that at the end of that video, I would be so passionate, so driven by what I felt,’ Porsha continued.
‘I wanted to make sure that I gathered it all, felt every bit, to use it to be able to channel it into a message to help a movement so that this comes to an end,’ she added.
She also urged everyone to vote.
‘I want everybody to go vote. The same African American lives that we want to save and the same way I just want to live in my black skin and my brother just wants to live in his black skin, those same African Americans die for the right for us to be able to vote. That is how you lift your voice; that is how you fight for real change,’ Porsha said.
‘We have the right to freedom of assembly, the right to freedom of association, and the right to freedom of speech,’ she began; pictured on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen
Porsha also proclaimed the civil unrest will not end until authorities take notice.
‘People want to see change and the time for the change is now. The people are serious this time. We do mean no justice, no peace,’ she said.
The reality star also took to social media after sharing video of herself being tear gassed Monday along with other protesters.
‘We have the right to freedom of assembly, the right to freedom of association, and the right to freedom of speech,’ she posted on Instagram. ‘Although today here in Atlanta that was taken away from us.’
Porsha added: ‘A very peaceful group of us protesters had pepper spray bombs thrown at us!’
‘In the post right before this one you can hear the music & peaceful chanting right before we were had bombed!’ the mother concluded.
Young daughter: Porsha, shown last September in Atlanta, has one-year-old daughter Pilar Jhena with fiance Dennis