By Carlotta Mohamed
Four cities will march and speak out against injustice, protesting the Dominican Republic’s ethnic cleansing and mass deportations of Dominico-Haitians on Thursday.
The Haitian community in Philadelphia will join Haitian communities in New York, Miami, Atlanta and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to bring attention and immediate action through marches held in their communities, said Marc Antoine, co-chair of the Community Development for the Haitian Professionals of Philadelphia.
“These cities have large Haitian Diasporas,” said Antoine. “We won’t tolerate injustices and we’re putting pressure on the local and national government to do something about what is going on since it has not been in the news.”
A childhood friend—a part of Mouvman Ayiti Pap Peri (a Collegiate Student Association in Haiti)—had contacted Antoine asking if he can coordinate marches in the states. He has been reaching out to different key readers and community organizers in different cities to advocate against the deportations of Dominico-Haitians stripped of their citizenship from the Dominican Republic.
Key participants expected to be at the protests are NAACP Chapters, Mouvman Ayiti Pap Peri (Collegiate Student Association in Haiti), the Haitian American Caucus (HAC), Haitian Coalition of Philadelphia, and Haitian Professionals of Philadelphia.
The Haitian Diaspora in New York City and HAC, led by Jennings Louis, will march from 14th Street Union Square to the Google building on eighth avenue between West 15th and West 16th Street.The marches will take place July 2, from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.