An Inspiring Darfur rally event

A darfur rally was held in front of the U.S mission to the United Nations on May 23rd 2008. The event was organized by Africa Action, African Services Committee, American Jewish World Service, Armenian National Committee of America, Chadian Association of North America, darfur intervention network and many others. There were also speakers from secular and non-secular backgrounds. For a list of speakers follow the africaaction link below.

The message was the same, that the U.S needs to put more pressure on the Khartoom regime to end the killings and displacements of innocent people that has left about 400,000 dead and millions without homes.

I have to admit that I used to be a cynic of rallies. I thought they were events of all noise with little effect until I learned that when innocent civilians were being slaughtered during Nigeria's civil war from 1967-1970, people were protesting in the United States and Europe, urging thier governments to do something to end the war. Money that was raised by many kind hearted individuals in campuses, churches and organizations all over the world provided hope for the starving children of Biafra ,which the Nigerian government sought to exterminate with the weapon of hunger. As I have already mentioned elsewhere my parents survived the genocide led war, and I have these people to thank. Rallies were also instrumental for the civil rights movement and cessation of aparthied.

I have decided to do for others what others did for my parents and millions of innocents. The rally was my first experience of speaking up with hundreds of like minded individuals for justice in Darfur. It was truly touching to witness young and old, black, white, asian (you name it) come together for such an important and life saving mission. I was inspired by elementary and high school children chanting, "We Want Action, Now!" . There is indeed hope for the future!
For more information on this event and others coming up you can visit: http://www.genocideintervention.org/ and http://www.africaaction.org/. Here are the pictures I took.


The group saw the Sudanese ambassador walk into a building and sought to get his attention. Unfortunately he disapeared before I could aim my camera at him. Instead I focused on the banners instead.

These people mean business when they say bring peace to Darfur.

I wish I could recall this lady's name for she was such an amazing singer. Her lyrics and tone of voice was laced with the pain of what the people of Darfur are experiencing and also filled with hope for a better tomorrow.

As you can tell from the picture it began to rain but that did not deter the group from chanting thier slogans and listening to the speakers.

The rain began to subside. In a short while it was back to sunshine, but either way, rain or shine, they...we....weren't deterred.