CARLSBAD, Calif. – A group of local surfers took to the water Sunday in Carlsbad in support of ongoing national Black Lives Matter protests and in an effort to amplify the community’s “unheard voices.”

Organizer Maxwell Dana told Fox 5 the group wanted to show their support of the Black community by doing what they do best in surfing at the local coastline. Dana said there’s room to bridge divides while noting the Carlsbad community — where roughly 84 percent of residents are white — has “a lot of privilege here and we need to use it for something good.”

“We wanted to bring a whole community together and just do something, mainly because we live in a predominately white neighborhood and people don’t get as much exposure to what’s going on in the rest of the world,” he said.

That exposure, Dana said, is critical because “if people don’t have exposure and they don’t learn, there’s never any change.”

Several other recent paddle outs have been held in Encinitas and La Jolla as well as elsewhere in California in honor of Minneapolis man George Floyd who was killed in police custody on Memorial Day. Floyd’s death and others — including the deaths of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta and Breonna Taylor in Louisville — sparked global anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests and have renewed calls for reforms in law enforcement.

Peaceful protests were held elsewhere Sunday in San Diego County including a unity ride, where about 150 motorcyclists rode from Oak Park to police headquarters in La Mesa.