Latest news with #BigRedWagon
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Spokane Pride Parade and Festival, and accompanying protests, will proceed unfazed by Wednesday's tensions
Jun. 12—Spokane's Pride Parade and Festival will proceed Saturday along with several protests planned well in advance of an anti-ICE protest Wednesday that quickly escalated into a standoff with police and ended with a curfew order. Spokane Pride is hosting the local iteration of a nationwide anti-Trump rally called "No Kings" at 4 p.m. near the Big Red Wagon in partnership with Spokane Indivisible — as well as a local civil rights Stonewall Rally at 3 p.m. in the Lilac Bowl. Organizers feel well-prepared for any possible spillover of tensions from earlier in the week but expect events to proceed normally, said Jacob Schwartz, president of Spokane Pride, during a Thursday afternoon news conference. Spokane Pride maintains a command center with active lines of communication with stages and volunteers, and will have assistance from the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane and the PEACE Angels to de-escalate protests if necessary, Schwartz added. "First and foremost, come," he said. "We want to see you here. Of course it's tense times, tumultuous, but right now, everything is planned to be operating as normal at Spokane Pride." Spokane police will have their regular presence at the Pride events Saturday, Schwartz noted, and the organization has been in conversations with the department, but there are currently no plans for increased patrols or any other changes. Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown intends to walk in the parade alongside a contingent of city employees and members of the City Council, she said Thursday. While there are heightened tensions nationwide to keep an eye on and it's not always clear when those might spill over, she said she was not aware of any reason to believe rallies would flare up Saturday. At least one other event scheduled Saturday could also contribute to tensions. Evangelical preacher and self-described Christian Nationalist Sean Feucht, best known locally for his controversial appearance in 2023 alongside former Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward and former state Representative Matt Shea, recently announced he is planning to host "Jesus Fest '25" in Spokane on Saturday. Feucht, who has been in Los Angeles in recent days condemning "anarchists" and "rioters," has stated the event will take Spokane "for Jesus during the largest pride festival."
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'My father would be crying': Hundreds protest Trump at downtown Spokane march
Feb. 17—Hundreds gathered in the snow by Spokane's Big Red Wagon Monday to protest President Donald Trump's sweeping and rapid actions to reform immigration enforcement, dismantle diversity programs and oversight of police, and more. Taking advantage of the Presidents Day holiday to gather in the park at noon Monday, organizers argued the protest was an opportunity to recognize and organize the power — not of the president, but of residents. The Residents Day March circled the Spokane River, marching with a police escort in one lane of the street northward on Monroe before looping back down the Washington Street tunnel under Riverfront Park. The event, one of at least two protests scheduled in the city Monday, was organized by over 30 primarily progressive advocacy groups, including Spokane Community Against Racism, Latinos En Spokane, Spokane Pride, the Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund and the county Democratic Party. Pui-Yan Lam, a sociology professor with Eastern Washington University, decried the White House's threats to withdraw federal funding from schools if they use race in numerous ways, including for scholarships, administrative support and housing. The letter outlining the Trump administration's threats also highlighted race-based preferential admission — which was already found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023. It also criticized "toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon 'systemic and structural racism,' " wrote Craig Trainor, acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights for the U.S. Department of Education in a Feb. 14 "Dear Colleague" letter. "Trump and the far-right want to destroy the education system because they are afraid of the liberatory power of education," said Lam, who is an immigrant from Hong Kong. "Authoritarian regimes will not tolerate an education that teaches students how to think for themselves — they don't want that for girls and women, and they don't want that for working class students." Pat Castaneda, executive director of immigrant resource organization Manzanita House, and Mark Finney of Thrive International, which provides transitional housing for refugees arriving in Spokane, both spoke to the Trump administration's freeze on all new refugee arrivals and renewed crackdown on undocumented immigrants. "I refuse to watch my fellow immigrants live in fear in the shadows," said Castaneda, who is an immigrant from Venezuela. "Every day I see immigrants raising families, working hard, starting businesses. We make this city stronger." Evee Polanski, a Mexican immigrant who came with her family to the U.S. in 1991 as a child without legal documentation and who was protected by the Obama-era DACA policy before receiving legal residency, described the fear she experienced as an undocumented immigrant. "I was that child who came home to her parents being gone because they got picked up by ICE," Polanski said. "I was also that adult that grew up afraid to go to work when ICE raids were happening in Nevada, because that meant I might not come home to my own two children." "Immigrant children are not criminals," she added. "I am not a criminal. You know who is a criminal? The current administration." Kurtis Robinson, executive director of post-incarceration aid organization Revive Center for Returning Citizens and former president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, urged those in attendance to expand their activism beyond Monday's march and to focus their attention locally, not just to D.C. "Where's the work being done here at home?" Robinson asked. "We have a lot of work to do, and some of that work is right here." Attendees included college students and parents with young children who didn't have school Monday, at least two people who are among the many who believe they were illegally fired last week from their federal jobs, public educators, activists and several who said they had never participated in a protest before. Kirk Phillips, who said this was the second protest he attended recently to express his displeasure with the Trump administration, hoped that Monday's event would put pressure on elected leaders like Rep. Michael Baumgartner to "actively put forward their constituents' interests more than they're doing right now." Nan Lubbert, a member of the local chapter of Raging Grannies, pushed her rollator through the slush as she tried to keep up with the march. "We literally have felons and perverts and rich billionaires who want to get more billions in our government," Lubbert said in frustration. "Our fathers fought in World War 2 — come on! My gosh, my father would be crying, or just go back into his grave, if he could see."
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hundreds protest Trump at downtown Spokane march
Feb. 17—Hundreds gathered in the snow by Spokane's Big Red Wagon Monday to protest President Donald Trump's sweeping and rapid actions to reform education and immigration enforcement, dismantle diversity programs and oversight of police, and more. Taking advantage of the Presidents Day holiday to gather in the park at noon Monday, organizers argued the protest was an opportunity to recognize and organize the power, not of the president, but of residents. The Residents Day March circled the Spokane River, marching with a police escort in one lane of the street northward on Monroe before looping back down the Washington Street tunnel under Riverfront Park. The event, one of at least two protests scheduled in the city Monday, was organized by over 30 organizations of primarily various racial, gender, immigrant and progressive advocacy groups, including Spokane Community Against Racism, Latinos En Spokane, Spokane Pride, the Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund and the county Democratic Party. Pui-Yan Lam, a sociology professor with Washington State University, decried the White House's threats to withdraw federal funding from schools that use race-based preferential admission — which was already found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 — but also which "toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon 'systemic and structural racism,'" wrote Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights for the U.S. Department of Education in a Feb. 14 "Dear Colleague" letter. "Trump and the far-right want to destroy the education system because they are afraid of the liberatory power of education," said Lam, who is an immigrant from Hong Kong. "Authoritarian regimes will not tolerate an education that teaches students how to think for themselves — they don't want that for girls and women, and they don't want that for working class students." Pat Castaneda, executive director of immigrant resource organization Manzanita House, and Mark Finney of Thrive International, which provides transitional housing for refugees arriving in Spokane, both spoke to the Trump administration's freeze on all new refugee arrivals and renewed crackdown on undocumented immigrants. "I refuse to watch my fellow immigrants live in fear in the shadows," said Castaneda, who is an immigrant from Venezuela. "Every day I see immigrants raising families, working hard, starting businesses. We make this city stronger." Kurtis Robinson, executive director of post-incarceration aid organization Revive Center for Returning Citizens and former president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, urged those in attendance to expand their activism beyond Monday's march and to focus their attention locally, not just to D.C. "Where's the work being done here at home?" Robinson asked. "We have a lot of work to do, and some of that work is right here."
