Cold weather didn’t stop people from marching in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King’s holiday on Jan. 19. The action was called by the December 12th Movement.
The demonstration started with a rally in Jitu Weusi Square, named after the late revolutionary educator and organizer. A recording was broadcast of Dr. King’s famous April 4, 1967, address at Riverside Church, where he denounced the dirty war in Vietnam.
There, King declared: “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world is my own government.” For courageously telling the truth, he was executed exactly one year later in Memphis during a strike of sanitation workers for union recognition.
Roger Wareham, an International Secretariat member of the December 12th Movement, told people that he was there when Dr. King spoke. Wareham and other speakers denounced Trump’s fascist raids in Minneapolis targeting Somali immigrants. Just as fascist was Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores.
People marched down Harriet Ross Tubman Avenue carrying the Red, Black and Green Liberation Flag designed by the Honorable Marcus Garvey. Palestinian, Somali and Venezuelan flags were also carried. People chanted, “We aren’t afraid of Trump, Trump is afraid of us.”
A banner quoting Dr. King, “reclaim the revolutionary spirit, declare eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism,” led the march that took over the street. Drivers showed their support, and so did people on the sidewalks.
The ending rally was held near Utica Avenue, where Omowale Clay, chairperson of the December 12th Movement, spoke. Other speakers included representatives of the Palaver Collective and the United Negro Improvement Association, founded by Marcus Garvey.
The freedom fighter Marcus Garvey was a Jamaican immigrant who was framed, jailed and deported, just like immigrants are being attacked today. Everyone was determined to stop Trump’s fascist war drive against poor people everywhere.
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