Join The Latinx/os And African Diaspora March In Harlem

A network of longstanding and younger members of the Latinx diaspora will march in Harlem on June 14, 2020, at 1 pm ET. The march will include organizers, labor and faith leaders, educators, and sixties-era revolutionaries. The date marks this year’s canceled Puerto Rican Day Parade and is a week ahead of Juneteenth.

Organizers of the march stand in solidarity with and in defense of black lives—keeping in mind that many in the Latino community consider themselves black and part of the Black American community and African Diaspora. The organizers denounce the police violence that is systemically deployed against African American, Latinx and Native American people across the country. Such violence is increasingly leveled against white and Asian people resisting white supremacy in the streets. The organizers also seek to highlight the common struggles of African Americans, Latinxs and those of the African Diaspora.

Though sometimes divided, these groups share common oppression. They live in the same gentrified and heavily policed neighborhoods in cities such as New York, LA, Philadelphia, and Chicago. And from the NYPD to ICE, they are targets of the same law enforcement organizations. These communities have been over-represented among those who died of COVID 19. And they form part of the same class of essential, yet disposable workers who keep NYC and the country running.

We stand with all who are calling to demilitarize, disarm, defund, and abolish the police.

The march route highlights the historically powerful relationship between Latino/xs and African Americans. It begins at Mitchel Square Park on 167th Street and Broadway and moves to the site of the Audubon Ballroom/San Juan Theater Complex. There we will invoke the fighting spirits of Malcolm X and Don Pedro Albizu Campos. Along the rest of the route, we will honor, Kiko Garcia, Tom Soto, Luis Reyes Rivera, Yuri Kochiyama, Adam Clayton Powell Jr, Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, Yassir Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi, Marcus Garvey, Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer.

At the end of the march, at the People’s Church, we will honor the fighting spirit of the Black Panther Party, Young Lords Party, The Brown Berets, I Wor Kuen, the Rainbow Coalition, the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, the Stonewall Rebellion and the struggle against never-ending capitalist international wars.

In a world filled with white supremacy, a pandemic, capitalist exploitation, and the fallout of imperialist war, this moment of mass insurrection —propelled by the horrific killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Allan Feliz, Erik Salgado Sean Monterrosa, Tony McDade and Alexa Negrón Luciano in Puerto Rico, among countless others —is an opportunity to come together and transform this oppressive system.

Signers, in progress:

• A Call to Action on Puerto Rico / Un llamado a la Acción por Puerto Rico
• Black VegFest
• Campaign to Bring Mumia Home
• Claudia de la Cruz, ED, People’s Forum
• Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Chivona Newsome, Co-Founder, Black Lives Matter Greater NY, Candidate For Congress, Bronx NY15
• December 12th Movement
• Dorlimar Lebrón Malavé, First Spanish United Methodist Church, “The People’s Church”
• Estela Vázquez, Resident of East Harlem
• Johanna Fernández, Assoc Professor of History, Baruch College Historian, Campaign to Bring Mumia Home
• Joshua Carrera, Project Coordinator, Mayday Space
• Justice Center in El Barrio
• Karla Reyes – Justice Center en El Barrio and Party for Socialism and Liberation
• Latino Ministry at the Riverside Church
• Marysol Cerdeira, Host/Producer at WBAI 99.5 FM
• Mayday Space
• Mickey Melendez, Co-Founder-Young Lords NYC, NYC Educators Trip to Cuba, Con Sabor Latino WBAI
• Mustafa Sullivan, ED at FIERCE
• NYS Poor People’s Campaign
• People Pueblo Party
• Zenaida Mendez, Director, MNN El Barrio Firehouse Community Media Center

Find more information here.