A major rally on the crisis in Darfur will be held Sunday afternoon in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington. It’s called “Save Darfur: Rally to Stop Genocide.”
The rally is being organized by a coalition of over 130 faith-based humanitarian and human rights organizations.
One of those scheduled to speak is Rev. Gloria White-Hammond of Boston, chairwoman of the Million Voices for Darfur Campaign. In Washington, she told English to Africa reporter Joe De Capua about a postcard campaign supporting President Bush’s call for a stronger multinational force in Darfur.
“This is a campaign now that is looking to collect one million postcards. We now have 650,000 postcards and that’s pretty phenomenal given that two months ago we had 10,000. We hope that it will ignite a kind of energy, really, throughout the country. One of the challenges around this issue is that there has not been much of a buzz (much attention). Even though genocide is going on, the media haven’t covered that to the extent that it’s gotten people outraged and upset. So, we have in the course of this campaign begun to generate that buzz.”
Organizers are hoping tens of thousands of people will show up for Sunday’s rally.The postcards mentioned by Rev. White-Hammond can be downloaded at www.savedarfur.org.
The Boston minister visited Darfur a year ago. She says, “I went with two other American women and our goal was to show up on behalf of American women to let the women in Darfur know that we have neither turned a deaf ear nor a blind eye to their plight. And (we) wanted to understand what we, as American women, could do to come alongside them and support them in the midst of this great calamity that they’re experiencing.”