It was a busy day across the Mid-Hudson Valley on Sunday after a day of protests and rallies in Sullivan and Dutchess Counties.

In Poughkeepsie, Black Lives Matter Hudson Valley convened what they're calling a Community Circle in Mansion Square Park. They say it is in an effort to "build solidarity against the press of isolation and despair."

Rae Leiner is one of the organizers of the Community Circle and executive director of the Newburgh LGBTQ Center.

"We decided our form of protest was going to be to bring community members together," they said. "To have conversation, deepen relationships, and how we are going to push forward systemic change in order to ensure black lives are valued through the Mid-Hudson Valley."

Just over 250 people turned up to the park to have a discussion around how to use "local experience to confront oppression." Hawi Opondo is a student at Arlington High School and articulated what she learned at the event.

"I learned white people want to help us but sometimes they refuse to acknowledge their white privilege is in essence, supremacy. Even in school, we don't talk about racism enough, we go over just the surface," she said.

Just after the gathering in the park, there were some 300 people marching on nearby Main Street. Shouts of Black Lives Matter could be heard at a distance. Across the river in Sullivan County early Sunday, Monticello residents gathered in front of the Sullivan County Supreme Court.

"I'm through, we're through," Monticello resident Jimmy Green said.

He and his wife passionately spoke about their wish for justice.

"Me and her, we came through the Jim Crow law, we came through the segregation on sharecroppers farm," he said. "We see the stuff that white folk do, we see the stuff that the police have done. What they did this time, went to the heart."

Green felt it was important, even in the face of a pandemic, to come out and speak up on behalf of his community.

"I'm 72. My time is numbered," he said. "But, what I have left, I'll let it go. I'm not taking this no more. You can kill me now, I'm not taking it no more. Because you gon' kill me anyway."

All three rallies were peaceful. Linier in Poughkeepsie says there's more to come.

"What's coming out of this event, is another event just like it. To deepen a strategy for how we're going to deal with this systemic problem," they said.

Protests will continue across the mid-Hudson Valley with a protest on Tuesday. Organizers will convene at the Tubman Terrace Park at 4:00 p.m.