Aug. 18—BURLINGTON — New voices are emerging from both inside and outside Burlington in a call for city leaders to act more aggressively against signs of racism.

The Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism rallied members and supporters Tuesday for an organized demonstration pushing for action at a Burlington City Council meeting.

The demonstration was peaceful and cordial. City Council members heard of experiences with racism in Burlington and the surrounding area from speakers who came from as far away as Kenosha County, all urging city leaders to confront the issue.

More than a dozen people of diverse racial backgrounds converged on the City Council meeting after the BCDR issued a "call for action" to bring voices together.

In addition to seeking a more forceful response from city leaders, some participants called for changes in the structure and operation of a city task force that has spent a year privately studying race relations without implementing any significant new ideas.

"We have heard only excuses," said Erin Ramczyk, a coalition member who also serves on the city task force.

Ramczyk said the task force must be freed from "gatekeeping" by the city, and must improve public transparency by ceasing holding its meetings behind closed doors, away from public scrutiny.

Of racial conflict in the community, she said: "Why we're having a hard time doing the right thing here is hard to understand."

Another speaker, Linda Templin, who lives in the Town of Burlington, spoke about finding a Confederate flag displayed in her neighborhood and worrying if her family was safe from hate and violence.

Templin held up a photograph of her two daughters — one black, one white — and asked city officials to work toward creating a peaceful community for people of all races.

"It's a great town, if you're white," she said.

The demonstration was the latest in a series of organized actions in recent years aimed at calling attention to racial tensions in and around Burlington. The task force created by Mayor Jeannie Hefty last year has come under fire after reporting little progress on specific proposals for public education, community feedback, and diversity planning.

At the same time, Hefty and others have been questioned for taking no immediate action after another Confederate flag display was reported by concerned residents in a Burlington neighborhood; that flag has since been taken down after the landlord told the tenant to remove it, following at least one complaint.

One of those residents, Brittany Angley-Thorngate, has since said she met with the mayor and found Hefty to be genuine about wanting to deal with racism. At the mayor's invitation, Angley-Thorngate has agreed to join the city's task force.

Angley-Thorngate, a mixed-race woman, joined others Tuesday before the City Council and suggested that the task force should be led by someone from a racial minority.

"I believe Mayor Hefty loves this community and is committed to making it welcoming to everyone," she said. "Let's put aside our differences."

Others who took the microphone and suggested that those seeking action against racism were trying to paint the entire Burlington population of 11,000 people as racist.

Marlo Brown, a member of the Burlington Area School Board who also serves on the city task force, said he has seen worse examples of racism while living previously in Texas and Alabama.

Brown, who is black, said he would oppose any effort to change the leadership on the task force. Rather than attacking others, he said, people should be trying to work with the task force.

"If you're not going to work the process," he said, "get out of the way."

The current leader of the task force is David Thompson, a former Burlington school board president. Thompson, who is white, was not present during Tuesday's meeting.

Another incident mentioned before the City Council was a football game last year during which members of the Burlington High School team were accused of using racial slurs toward members of the opposing team from Westosha Central High School.

Jaylen Harper, a football player from Westosha Central in Kenosha County, told aldermen that he and his teammates endured "racial slur after racial slur" from their Burlington opponents. Harper, who was accompanied by his father, said community leaders in Burlington seem to be doing nothing to discourage such racism.

"There needs to be change," he said. "This city is going down a bad hill."

Burlington school administrators initially suspended one football player from extracurricular activities after the incident last year, but the suspension was later overturned on appeal.

Another speaker, Nicole Fish, broke into tears while recounting a time when a truckload of passersby yelled racial slurs at her family. Her husband and children are of Indian descent.

Fish said she knows of nowhere in Burlington where victims of such attacks can register their complaints or seek action.

"These incidents happen over and over again, with nothing being done," she told the council. "Something needs to change."

Jeff Lettow, who lives near Browns Lake, said he enjoys keeping yard signs displayed outside his house to show support for Black Lives Matter.

Lettow said he must replace the signs every few weeks because, he said, neighbors keep destroying or vandalizing the signs, in what he describes as a show of racism.

"Racism is here," he said. "And it is becoming the norm, not the exception any more."

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