The subject of this portrait is Patrick Hutchinson, a 50-year-old grandfather, personal trainer, and Black Lives Matter protestor in England who, in June 2020, had rescued a far-right counter protestor during a rally in the wake of the death of George Floyd. The white counter protestor, a heavily intoxicated retired transport police officer and detective, had been beaten senseless, and was in danger of being trampled when Patrick Hutchinson hoisted the man over his shoulder, ushering him to safety next to a line of police officers. 4 of Hutchinson’s friends, also very fit men, some who were experienced in martial arts, had formed a protective circle around the man in order to accomplish this.
Hutchinson and his friends had attended the BLM rally in the interest of protecting vulnerable, young protestors from harm, as they had experienced their own share of “senseless white rage.”
When asked why he rescued the man, he said he wanted the gesture to be a unifying image for the BLM movement. He also said “…my natural instinct is to protect the vulnerable. If that man had died, the whole Black Lives Matter movement would have been torpedoed. Young black men would have gone to prison and had their lives ruined. It wasn’t just protecting that guy — I was protecting us.”
Hutchinson has since written a book with poet Sophia Thakur called Everyone Versus Racism: A Letter To My Children, and set up the charity United to Change and Inspire, to fight racial inequality in Britain. The image of him carrying the man to safety has been made into a mural in the London Borough of Lewisham.
As of December 2020, he had not heard from the man he rescued.
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