International

From the organizers:

Join students, workers, and Vermonters all across the state at City Hall Park to demand an end to Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine!

As Israel and the US threaten Rafah with invasion, it is our responsibility to continue showing up in greater numbers and to show our ruling class that we REFUSE to be intimidated!

In the words of Aaron Bushnell, “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was commiting genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

From ORCA Media:

Special Event at the Vermont State House

From Mark Hughes:

In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. constitution, the second reconstruction amendment, was created to provide citizenship, equal protection, due process, and certain privileges and immunities for the formerly enslaved. Over the past 155 years the Equal Protection Clause has faced backlash and resistance and has scarcely fulfilled its promise of equal protection to us Black folks. Now the Equal Protection Clause is being turned against us, challenging corrective and reparative economic policies designed to correct what government policies have caused. Is this Backwards Day?

It is the state's responsibility to protect us where the federal government won't. We must amend the constitution to make it so. Let's run a sanity check on this with a legal perspective. Peter, where you at?

Host Rev. Mark Hughes, Executive Director of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, chats with Peter Teachout, a Professor of Law, Constitutional Law, at Vermont Law School.

For more information visit: VTRacialJusticeAlliance.org

Meghan O'Rourke, CCTV, hosts conversation about the Burlington Sister City program with Mousa Ishaq and Orly Yadin. They discuss the Sister Cities of Bethlehem and Arad. The Sister Cities Organizations are international, long-term partnerships between two communities. As described by the City of Burlington, these partnerships are designed to promote intercultural understanding and interpersonal connections.

A note from Mousa: "One important thing I failed to mention about the founding of the Sister City is that the late Bill Aswad, an Arab American, and Gene Bergman, a Jewish American, were councilors at the time and sponsored the resolution. It has a great symbolism. Gene Bergman is back on the council and still working for equal rights for everyone."

For more information about the Sister City program, visit: www.burlingtonvt.gov/Mayor/Sister-Cities