Caribbean American community leaders in New York City will hold a massive “Caribbean Americans For Justice” march and rally in Brooklyn on Sunday, June 14.
According to Rickford Burke, president of the Brooklyn-based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID), one of the organizers, the march will begin at Church and Flatbush avenues at noon and proceed north on Flathbush Avenue to Grand Army Plaza (intersection circle at Eastern Partway and Flatbush Avenue), where the massive rally will take place.
“This event will demonstrate Caribbean American solidarity with African Americans, and other Americans who reject police brutality, racism and injustice,” said the Guyanese-born Burke, an international law consultant. “Organizers will also present an agenda for tangible, legislative and policy reforms at the federal, state and local levels.
“This event provides the opportunity for the Caribbean community to unreservedly embrace the movement for justice for George Floyd and espouse its views on the fight for equality, social justice, as well as respect for the civil and human rights, and dignity of people of color and all Americans,” he added.
Burke said several federal, state and city elected officials have been invited to report on legislative and policy measures they have enacted to date “to guarantee police accountability, justice for victims of police brutality and other abuses, as well as reverse inequities that plaque African Americans and other minorities.”
He said organizers are calling on all Caribbean Americans in the New York tristate area to join the march and rally to demand justice for Floyd, and an end to systemic racism and police brutality in New York and the US.
Besides Burke, the organizers include Pastor Gilford Monrose; Minna Lafortune, president of the Society for the Advancement of the Caribbean Diaspora (SACD); the Rev. Terry Lee of the Byways and Hedges Church Organization; Haitian American community leader Rose Guerrier of International Cultures United (ICU),;community activist and youth leader Chris Banks; and Junior George, host of Ride Along Live.
