Silent March to Protest NYC’s “Stop and Frisk”

by Lawrence Gulotta

Lawrence Gulotta at the protest, photo by his son Nick

An unusually broad coalition turned out on Father’s Day, June 17^th to protest the increasing unpopular Stop and Frisk policies of the New York City Police Department. Many thousands of marchers departed, starting at 3 PM, in silent procession, from the corner of W. 110^th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem and solemnly marched down Fifth Avenue to E. 77^th Street, one block from the luxury townhouse of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

299 organizations endorsed the march.

• Unions were well represented with “boots on the ground” and banners up. The union turnout was impressive and included: the United Automobile Workers, Locals 2110, 2325, and Region 9A, New York Metro Area Postal Union, APWU, UFT, AFSCME DC 37, 1199 SEIU and SEIU 32BJ, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 3, Laborers Local 79, NYC Central Labor Council, and RWDSU.
• Civil Rights organizations were in the lead contingents: NAACP, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, NAACP NY Metro, NAACP Tri-State,.
• LGBT organizations were represented, in large numbers, individually and through their various organizations.
•  Religious organizations, including numerous Muslim, Jewish, Quaker and Christian social justice committees and Congregations and Chinese, Korean and Arab community groups.Student associations, including several hundred Muslim youth.
• Occupy Wall Street veterans.
• Democratic Party elected officials Christine Quinn, the Council speaker, Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, and William Thompson, the former city comptroller.
• Small contingents of the sectarian left (all 57 varieties) kibitzed with the marchers and sold their newspapers.