Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – A day after the Massey Commission presented its report to the Sangamon County Board – with recommendations on better policing and less racism – the Purple Coalition held a joint meeting with the Massey Commission.

Since then-Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson shot and killed Sonya Massey in her home on July 6, 2024, allegations of racism have flown from the public comment mic to the Springfield city council and police department on a near-regular basis.

Are our community leaders and police officers really out to be racists?

“It’s not that somebody gets up and goes, I am going to oppress Black people today,” said Ken Pacha, media director for the Purple Coalition. “What happens is they exist in a system that, without their intent, has created those perpetual systems that do oppress Black people or do oppress Hispanics or do oppress marginalized groups, and the problem is unless we talk about it and inform people that those systems exist and are in place and how they function, people will operate unknowingly helping support those systems without intention.”

“I’ve never found it to be a helpful thing to just call someone racist,” said Kelly Hurst (pictured), managing director of the Massey Commission, “but I think it’s more important to look at the structure. Our structures were all built by and for one group of people in this country, and it’s taken dozens and dozens of years and millions of people to try to turn around and change it.”

Hurst hopes a new group with mostly different people can pick up the cause now. The Purple Coalition plans a town hall for next month.