On what would have been the 82nd birthday of slain civil-rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., activists for various social causes held a rally and protest march in downtown Richmond Saturday.
More than 60 people rallied at the Kanawha Plaza at 8th and Main streets, taking turns on a loudspeaker to call for criminal-justice reform, rights for immigrants and an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other issues.
"This is a gathering of the people to express their various concerns," said Lillie "Ms. K" Branch-Kennedy, a social activist and an organizer of the event.
The rally was held in honor of King, she said, because "everything we do is peaceful. This is about the people who are disadvantaged — the poor, the disabled, the homeless."
Chanting slogans such as "Jobs for Money, Not for War," the group marched past the state Capitol and along East Broad Street to hold a short vigil at the historical marker for Gabriel, a slave who was executed in 1800 after trying to start a rebellion.
One of the major points of the rally was the effort to get a Virginia Commonwealth University parking lot removed from land near the Gabriel marker that was once a burial ground for slaves and free blacks.
Gov. Bob McDonnell in December announced a $3.3 million state budget amendment that would reimburse VCU for the lot and transfer it to the city, but activists yesterday said the issue is not settled.
"I'm here today to make it clear that simply because the city has said they will purchase the land from VCU, it does not mean the struggle is over," said Aime Tudor, a VCU student who has been working to preserve the site. "They are still parking cars there, and they will continue to park cars."
The rally and march attracted activists from across the state. Nick Szuberla, founder of the prison-reform group Thousand Kites in Southwest Virginia and Kentucky, called for the restoration of parole in Virginia, saying the state would do better to spend more on education, infrastructure and attracting jobs than building prisons.
"In Southwest Virginia, we are using prisons as a form of economic development," he said. "We actually had to build prisons to provide employment for people. One small part of that equation is there is no parole in Virginia. We have 28,000 people who have no hope of getting out."
And a group of activists from Prince William County also attended the rally to speak against legislation that would prohibit undocumented immigrants from attending state colleges.
"Dr. King said, 'We are in this together,'" said John Steinbach, a volunteer with the Woodbridge Workers Committee, an advocacy group for immigrants. "Brothers and sisters, we are in this together. Workers are under attack, immigrants are under attack, services are being cut, our education system is being privatized, and we need to stand together, black and white and immigrants."
jblackwell@timesdispatch.com
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