Black Residents Share Their Stories With Iowa City Leaders At Listening Post Focusing On Racial Injustice

IOWA CITY — As more than 100 people gathered in Wetherby Park in Iowa City on Wednesday evening, Mayor Bruce Teague, the second black mayor in the city’s history, led the crowd in chants.The crowd, which included both white and black residents, called out “Black Lives Matter,” “This is what democracy looks like” and “George Floyd, say his name,” invoking the name of the black man killed by a white police officer who knelt on his neck in Minneapolis, setting off a wave of protests across the country.“OK, we’ve said his name, and it needs to be said across this nation,” Teague said, before calling on crowd members to come to the microphone — which he sanitized in between speakers — and share their thoughts and feelings with him and other elected officials present, which included Mayor Pro Tem Mazahir Salih and Johnson County Supervisor Royceann Porter.The listening session was the first of three planned for neighborhood parks.