Markeshia Ricks Photo
Morales-Sanchez, an organizer with Unidad Latina en Accion, speaks to the crowd Sunday
A tiki torch adorned with flowers instead of fire.
People gathered on the lower Green in solidarity for the victims of hate in Charlottesville, Va. and let it be known that New Haven won’t be a recruiting ground for anyone looking to divide this community.
Nearly 300 people gathered Sunday at the corner of Chapel and Church streets in the wake of a weekend of violence much further south in Charlottesville, Va. that left one young woman dead and more than 30 wounded after white nationalists gathered for a “Unite the Right” march.
The marchers in that town gathered presumably to protest the removal of a Confederate monument. The crowd in New Haven gathered to remind the world and themselves that they have a different vision.
Signs did a lot of talking at the solidarity protest.
Reminding that black and brown lives matter too…
Sami Abdul Aziz, president of Islamic consulting firm Common Ground Institute and Services, asked the attendees on the Green to “imagine a world in which black, white, Chinese, Arab, Iranian and all people greet each other,” with the phrase he translated from Arabic to English that means “peace be upon you.”
“I believe in such a world,” he said as he looked over a crowd of different races, ethnicities, genders, religious traditions and sexualities. “We have a responsibility to speak out against fascism, racism, and Islamaphobia whenever it rears its ugly head.”
“We cannot just talk about it,” he added. “But we must take action.”
Jesus Morales-Sanchez, an organizer with Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA), asked for a moment of silence for Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed when a car hit anti-racists counter protesters in Charlottesville.
and that loving one’s neighbor is nonnegotiable.
But afterward, he also invoked the events of July 8 when a group called the “Proud Boys,” dubbed an “alt-lite” group, came to New Haven to stage a demonstration. They were met by 150 anti-racist counter-protesters. Four people counter-demonstrators were arrested that day.
Morales-Sanchez praised those who participated in that demonstration because he said it put people who he said want to sow seeds of hate on notice that New Haven is not the town for them. (Police presence was heavy Sunday, but there were no counter-demonstrators or violence.)
He said it let them know, that “we’re not going to accept or welcome that kind of hatred and just like that, they left town, asking the police to escort them saying they will never be back.
“It is our duty as people to fight back against this hatred,” he added. He also urged that the charges against those arrested during the July 8 protests be dropped.
“They were not resisting arrest,” he said. “They were defending our city from racists, defending our city against white supremacists.We will not accept that kind of hatred.”
Even tiny protesters got involved.
Many would walk across the Green after the solidarity rally to show support for Marco Antonio Reyes Alvarez, an Ecuadorian immigrant, who has taken refuge at the First & Summerfield Church at College and Elm streets in hopes of avoiding deportation for a vigil. (Read more about that vigil here.)
“New Haven is a sanctuary city,” Norman Clement of Answer Coalition, which along with the New Haven Antifascists and ULA organized Sunday’s event, reminded the crowd drawing cheers. “And we should be damn proud of that.”
