The My name is Jasmine Smith and I'm an entrepreneur and a community activist and a community

council president.

So before we get into questions

about you being the host of rallies here in Anchorage, what was your personal response to learning about the

killing of George Floyd?

Yeah, my first response was very emotional.

I mean, it made me sad.

It was, you know know hurtful it just

reaffirmed that we had a long way to go but as soon as I found out I

realize something had to be done here in Alaska because even though our problems don't

look the same as the lower 48 we have problems too so after the pain I just

jumped into action and I just said it's time to do something.

Can you describe that moment

that you decided to host the I Can't Breathe rally in Anchorage?

Yeah, it was really interesting

because everybody kept asking me like what organization is hosting this?

What is the organization? What is the business? And that's when it dawned on me that people are too caught up in being protected by an organization,

having a name to be behind.

So when I was planning this event, my number one thought process was,

I'm not going to affiliate it with any business or any nonprofit.

I want it to be hosted by me, Jasmine Smith, a black woman, a mom.

So it was very, very vulnerable for me and it also allowed me to see who really supported me because it wasn't saved by anybody

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