Omowale Clay of the December 12th Movement speaking in Union Square.
Thousands of people in New York City “celebrated” the Fourth of You Lie by demonstrating for Palestinian freedom. They rallied in Manhattan’s Union Square, where hundreds carried Palestinian flags and signs.
The rally and march were called by the Shut It Down for Palestine Coalition, which includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, The People’s Forum, and PAL Awda: the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, among many others.
Among the speakers was Omowale Clay, a member of the International Secretariat of the December 12th Movement. Clay urged protesters to carry the struggle to Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, both famous Black communities in New York.
People marched up the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) in a loud, fast-moving procession several blocks long. Many onlookers showed their support.
Police harassed the march throughout, arresting five people along the route.
The protest wound up in Times Square. Speakers denounced the nearby military recruiting station where young workers, usually unemployed, are enticed to do the dirty work for Big Oil.
In the evening, thousands more gathered in Washington Square in solidarity with Palestine. They marched from there to the Hudson River, where crowds gathered to watch the annual fireworks display.
NYPD goons tried to block the marchers, but protesters circumvented their barricades and marched through the West Village, drawing applause from people on the sidewalk. Cops violently arrested 22 people, including an Orthodox rabbi who was holding placards condemning Zionism and supporting the Palestinian people.
Frederick Douglass famously asked, “What is the Fourth of July to a slave?” He answered: “a day that reveals to him [and her], more than all the other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he [and she] is the constant victim.”
Palestinians, of whom 40,000 have been killed in Gaza by Genocide Joe’s bombs, have no more reason to celebrate the Fourth of You Lie. Free Palestine!
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