No Justice No Pride rallies in solidarity with Black Pride 4

Video featuring a speaker giving information about the case

On the 12th of March, No Justice No Pride activists held a solidarity protest at the Dept of "Just-Us" for Ohio's Black Pride 4, the first of whom was scheduled to be sentenced the following day.

The Black Pride 4 were wrongfully convicted of 6 out of 8 misdemeanor charges for nonviolently blockading the Columbus, Ohio Pride Parade in 2017. That blockade was to protest the acquital of the killer cop who murdered Philando Castile, and raise awareness of Black and Brown GLBTQ people being ignored at Pride festivals.

The original charges filed against the Black Pride 4 were aggravated robbery (!), resisting arrest, causing harm to a police officer, failure to obey a police officer, and disorderly conduct. Original bail was $100,000. All four were convicted on at least some of the charges and could face years in prison. They didn't rob anyone, they nonviolently blocked a white, yuppie-dominated Pride parade unworthy of the name.

The organizers of the Stonewall Columbus Pride Festival and Parade had the nerve to first sic the cops on a nonviolent blockade, then to testify at trial against the Black Pride 4 as prosecutors sought convictions on extreme and spurious charges. Stonewall Columbus spits on the name of Stonewall, where transgender people, people of color, and sex workers rioted and defeated police after the infamous June 28, 1969 raid on New York City's Stonewall Inn. The Columbus part of their name is appropriate, however, as putting people of color in cages is very much in the ugly colonialist spirit of Christoper Columbus and those that came after him.