Lights for Liberty Protest

Last night, Friday, July 1, 2019, I set out around 6:00 pm, tired and reluctant because:  It was going to be a long walk, carrying a camp chair in a bag over my shoulder And it was going to end with me having a sore shoulder and a back ache when I could be home sitting in the living room watching NCIS.  Nonetheless I was 100 percent certain it was my duty to go to the protest at Knight's Park in Collingswood and add my voice to the others, outraged at the kidnapping of immigrant children from their trapped families at the border, and placing them in prison camps throughout the South.  

Sometimes your heart aches so much you have to take an action or slide into despair.  So I put on long pants, got my chair out of the shed, and went over to the park.  Taking a back way in case I needed to park in a side street, I passed many people, mostly my age or middle aged, walking down the sidewalk carrying their camp chairs.  I didn't have to park  far after all.  

We sat or stood around the big picnic pavilion and a lawyer spoke of how the breaks the laws, a social work talked about the long range damage from the trauma inflicted on vulnerable children, and several ministers part of the Sanctuary Network (kind of like the Underground Railroad spoke of their efforts to hide and protect immigrants from ICE.  

All the people around me were  kind and fervent, though limping and using canes and walkers.  There were may young families as well, however, and I couldn't help but think how lucky those children were in comparison with those poor kids in the tent camps with no help, no proper nutrition or hygiene, no kind or reassuring adult.  It is heartbreaking and shocking that men would make profit from these camps and the abuse of these children.  It is akin to the slave labor the Germans inflicted on captives in the 1930's and 40's.
Here we are again.  

Here is a news report on the Lights for Liberty Effort:

Updated July 13

The national Lights for Liberty campaign brought out thousands of people across the Philadelphia region on Friday. At daytime marches and evening vigils, they were protesting the anticipated raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, as well as federal law enforcement’s treatment of immigrants in detention centers at the border.

Upwards of 300 marchers swarmed the Pa. Convention Center at 12th and Arch in Center City at around noon.

Edward Deliman stood out among the crowd, wearing a clergy collar in the near-90 degree heat. As an auxiliary bishop to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, he’s spent 27 years in parishes with large immigrant populations — like Saint Agnes Parish in West Chester and Visitation Bless the Virgin Mary in Kensington.

“I’m here today to be in solidarity with our brothers and sisters down at the border,” Deliman said. “You gotta do whatever you have to do to catch the attention of those who can fix broken immigration laws.”

Another apt comparison is with fugitives fleeing the South during the period before, during AND after the Civil War.

Here is a chance to do the right thing.  I plan to get more involved through the Friends Service Committee.

Happy Trails!

Jo Ann