Report on the March 18 Youth & Student
March and Speakout in the Bronx

photo by Pedro Sousa; Click here for more photos.

On Sunday, March 19, hundreds of youth and students took to the streets of the Bronx in protest of the third anniversary of the "Shock and Awe" invasion of Iraq. The demonstration, initiated by Youth and Student A.N.S.W.E.R., was one of the hundreds of antiwar activities that took place nationwide and around the world for the March 18-20 Global Days of Action. A.N.S.W.E.R.-initated protests drew 25,000 people in San Francisco and 20,000 in Los Angeles. Click here for the national report on the weekend.

The youth and student march traveled up Grand Concourse - a main thoroughfare in the Bronx - and ended with a rally in front of the Military Recruitment Center at Fordham Road. Popular chants included, "Stop the U.S. war machine - from the Bronx to Iraq to the Philippines" and "Black, Latino, Arab, Asian, and white - no more, no more of this racist war - defend our civil rights!" Protesters carried banners and signs that linked the war at home with the war abroad, demanding "Money for Jobs and Education, Not for War and Occupation." Speakers pointed out that the war in Iraq is only one front of a global imperialist assault, which likewise targets the people of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Palestine, Haiti, and the Philippines.

Despite the police's excessive show of force - aimed to intimidate community members from joining the protest - many pedestrians and residents stopped to listen to the youth speakers.

Participating organizations included: Brotherhood-Sistersol Liberation Program, Columbia University's Chicano Caucus, Damayan Migrants group, Lehman Action Network, Movement in Motion Artist and Activist Collective, Network in Solidarity with the People of the Philippines (NISPOP), Party for Socialism and Liberation, ProLibertad Freedom Campaign, Puerto Rican Nationalist Youth of New York, Juventud de Iglesia San Romero de las Americas Church, and Ugnayan (Linking the Children of the Motherland).

Speakers and performers at the closing rally included:

Suelye Guerra, Youth and Student ANSWER
Jeanette Caceres, Youth & Student ANSWER
Karina Garcia, Chicano Caucus of Columbia University
Manolo, Iglesia San Romero de las Americas
Spiritchild, Movement in Motion Artists and Activists Collective
Ofelia Virtucio, Justice Not War in the Philippines
Red Star and Patty Dukes, anti-recruitment hip hop performers
Shaka Shakur, New Black Panther Party
Danette Chivas, tenant of Patterson Houses in the South Bronx
Corinne Manabat, Ugnayan (Linking the Children of the Motherland)
Ben Becker, Party for Socialism and Liberation

Click here for photos of the protest.

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March and Speakout. Click here to help contribute to this work.