With the Gateway Arch as their designated backdrop, activists flew a banner in downtown St. Louis that read “Racism still lives here” as part of the Ferguson Commemoration Weekend’s day of civil disobedience on Monday (April 10).
“In this country, racism kills,” said Elizabeth Vega, leader of the activists group The Artivists that helped plan the action. “Because a year after Mike Brown, people are still dying.”
Donned in rock-climbing harnesses, two women – an African-American and a Latina – acted as anchors as they raised the 40-foot banner up with two helium-filled weather balloons. Two young black men served as their supports.
“We are not attaching the banner to anything,” Vega said. “We are not trespassing or vandalizing. People fly kites in federal parks all the time. Ours just happens to be 10-foot by 10-foot weather balloons and a huge banner.”
Jessie Sandoval, who acted as one of the banner’s anchors, said they’ve been planning the action for months.
“The banner is not only a visual spectacle,” she said, “but it’s also an invitation for people to get involved in this movement and to bring together their own families and communities to have discussions.”
Read more here.
