About 100 people gathered on Saturday, January 10, on the steps of City Hall for a candlelight vigil honoring the life of Renee Good, who was shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis on January 7.
The gathering was put on by a group of locals who felt the community needed an opportunity to mourn together.
“I think it’s so important for community to come together when there’s something that’s deeply upsetting happening,” Katya Murthy, who helped to put on the event, told the Alameda Post. “To have some time and place to support each other and express our thoughts and feelings rather than shut down, withdraw, feel overwhelmed, and hopeless. The solidarity is so vital to empower us to speak up because what’s happening is not OK and we are in a democracy where our input and voices are important and mean something still. It’s critical for people to feel that they are heard and matter … I believe this is our only hope.”
Throughout the evening, participants held candles and signs as community members took turns speaking to the undemocratic atrocities taking place throughout the country. “NO ICE/ NO WAR/ NO KINGS,” one sign read.
Periodically, the group sang songs, softly swaying as their candles flickered in the evening wind.
“This Land is your land, this land is my land/ From California, to the New York Island/ From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters/ This land was made for you and me.”
Murthy is part of a group of people who peacefully protest the Trump administration every Saturday at noon until 2 p.m. at City Hall and at the corner of Lincoln and Webster every Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Murthy says the core group is about 15 people and the turnout fluctuates depending on “what our administration has done that week and how people are reacting.”
“It’s very uplifting [to gather], especially when something bad has happened,” she said.
Kelsey Goeres is the Managing Editor of the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Kelsey-Goeres.
