On Saturday, Asian Americans joined a commemoration of the historic 1963 March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech.
Hours later, they symbolically hooked arms with the rest of the country in mourning the deaths of three Black people killed by an avowed racist in Jacksonville, Florida.
“The disease of racism has many strands, and we must be ready to cut each strand in every community that is targeted with unprovoked violence for simply shopping in a store, walking down the street, or living in our homes,” said Advancing Justice, AAJC said in a statement sent to AsAmNews.
JACL was the only Asian American organization to join the March on Washington in 1963.
They returned 60 years later to take part in the commemoration.
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“We must do better as a nation if we are to make true on the hopes and dreams of the past,” JACL said in a statement to AsAmNews.
“The intersection of racism and gun violence is resulting in dire consequences. This is particularly true in a state such as Florida which has passed laws to enable and embolden gun owners to brazenly turn to gun violence as their first option. This mixed with a series of policy changes targeting multicultural and particularly African American communities, incidents such as this are frighteningly more likely to happen.”
AAPI Victory Alliance has been a strong advocate for gun control. Saturday’s mass shooting only strengthened their commitment.
“We must hold accountable both those behind the gun and the legislators who allow gun violence to run rampant in our country. Our elected officials in Washington D.C., Florida and other states around our nation are failing by staying silent about gun violence and not enacting meaningful gun violence prevention legislation,” it said.
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