Black Trans Lives Matter rally at Brooklyn Museum has MASSIVE turnout (check it out)

Black Liberation, a rally, silent march, and “an action for Black trans lives,” brought thousands of people to the area surrounding Brooklyn Museum on Sunday (6/14). Organized by The Okra Project, Marsha P. Johnson Institute, For the Gworls, G.L.I.T.S., and Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, the event came after two Black transgender women, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells of Pennsylvania and Riah Milton of Ohio, were killed in the past week. It also happened amid the ongoing protests against police brutality and systemic racism following George Floyd’s death at the hands of police.

Attendees were instructed to wear white, in reference to the nearly 10,000 demonstrators, dressed in white, who marched in NAACP’s Silent Protest Parade in 1917. Gothamist reports that “The demonstration stretched for miles from the Brooklyn Museum towards” Fort Greene Park, spilling onto side streets and taking over Eastern Parkway. You can get an overhead view of the massive, inspiring crowd in the pictures and videos below.

“We can’t just talk about trans people when they’re dying,” event co-organizer and director of communications at NYC Anti-Violence Project Eliel Cruz told CNN. “But what are we doing actively and intentionally to create space for them to be safe and well?”

“It’s not just some protest, it’s a movement,” Jonathan Burkhalter, a Brooklyn poet, told Gothamist. “The speakers here represent housing, food access—it’s all different types of issues intersecting in this city.”