From Freddie Gray to free Palestine: activists link struggles against state violence and oppression

Jace Carter addressed the Baltimore Hands Off Our Students Protest & March that gathered at Penn Station, April 27, 2025. Over a hundred students from many of the area campuses attended.

Good afternoon, sisters, brothers and siblings. My name is Jace, and I’m with the People’s Power Assembly, an organization that has been fighting against racist police terror and for the rights of poor, working-class people since the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012. 

We were also on the frontlines after Freddie Gray’s murder by the Zionist-trained BPD during the Baltimore Uprising in 2015. And on this, the 10th anniversary of Freddie Gray’s murder, and today in particular (April 27) being the day of his funeral, I stand here today to say it’s still: All night, all day, justice for Freddie Gray!

All night, all day, justice for Freddie Gray!

All night, all day, we will fight for Freddie Gray!

I am also, unfortunately, a recent graduate of Loyola University Maryland, a liberal institution that is very anti-worker and very deep in the pockets of the capitalists. Shame! In November of 2023, the People’s Power Assembly marched across the Evergreen Quad in solidarity with the students who had newly formed the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Loyola. The administration had the audacity to call Loyola Police on this demonstration to break it up, calling it an “unauthorized gathering,” claiming that we “didn’t have the proper permits and approvals,” and whatnot. 

After this demonstration, the administration threatened leaders within this SJP chapter with expulsion if they did not immediately disband the chapter. Shame!

I am deeply ashamed to have been part of an institution that prides itself on how many community partnerships it claims to have, and also claims that its student body doesn’t live in that infamous “bubble” that was mentioned earlier. The people I went to this shameful institution with called our York Road neighbors, and I quote, “dirty, homeless druggies,” and are deathly afraid to walk York Road at any time of day out of “fear.” Call it what it is, it’s outright racism!

I was also part of a social justice organization on campus as a work-study student my senior year, where I actively witnessed my best friend and roommate, who also worked there, get her wages repeatedly stolen by her supervisor. I ended up resigning my position in disgrace because when I tried to call this shameful shit out, I was considered crazy. 

I say all this to say that as blood brothers, sisters and siblings in the struggle, especially to my fellow student organizers and activists, I continue to stand in solidarity with you all, fighting against your oppressive institutions, and we will continue to fight like hell to make our demands fully enacted! 

And one last thing that I want to say (this is a very short speech) is that Mahmoud Khalil should be home today with his wife and newborn son, and not sitting in an ICE detention facility 1,400 miles away in Louisiana! 

Free Palestine! Long live the student intifada! Till victory!