March for the Dead

August 21, 2020

Fight for the Living.

Around a hundred of the latter honored the lives of 170,000+ of the former tonight in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. Carrying candles and signs, pounding on drums and chanting as they marched, the group traveled from its assembly point at Barclays Center across the Brooklyn Bridge and up to Foley Square. There they gathered the candles and read the names of (some of) the departed.

March organizer Jay W. Walker told the Gazette, “the purpose of today’s march was to put the Trump administration’s failure to address the pandemic in high relief. Blood is on their hands.”

From March for the Dead‘s website:

The pandemic has brought into sharp relief a number of stark realities that plague this nation. WE DEMAND:

• New federal leadership. Now. We can’t wait until November. Donald Trump should resign.
• Stop denying the right to vote and stop stymying efforts to make participation safe.
• Sound federal and state coronavirus policies based on the best scientific information available.
• Address profound inequality and inequity in access to healthcare and basic services.
• Launch a permanent public health workforce for contact tracing, testing and isolation support that then organizes to fight health disparities inflicted on communities of color.
• Release incarcerated people and detained immigrants, all at greater risk for COVID. Do not leave them to die. Stop deporting COVID-19 sufferers.
• Support international open-access non-profit development of medicines and vaccines that are free and available to all, rather than hidden behind Big Pharma patent monopolies.
• Stop the defunding of the World Health Organization. Fund all impoverished countries to have the health systems they need to stop pandemics where they start, before they spread.
• No in-person return to school without adequate funding and safety measures in place, and insure all families have the resources necessary for virtual learning.
• Provide ample monetary relief to the unemployed, sick, elderly, communities of color, and all people in need.
• Stop climate-change corporations from selling products in the U.S. if they are putting the world at risk for new zoonotic outbreaks due to deforestation.

On Friday, August 21st we will march together- to honor the memory of the dead, and to demand change for the living.