Oak Park Teacher Holds 'Community for Unity' Rally in the Face of a Trump Presidency

Following a letter sent out by the superintendent of River Forest Public Schools on Sunday emphasizing the schools’ dedication to diversity, a high school teacher organized a community rally as an outlet for those scared and worried about Donald Trump’s appointment to the presidency.

Anthony Clark, a teacher at Oak Park and River Forest High School, was one of a handful of speakers at the “Community for Unity” rally in Scoville Park this past Saturday, the Chicago Tribune reported. Around 200 people, many of whom held handmade signs with phrases like “Unite Together in Love” on them, gathered to talk about their concerns.

“We have to listen to and understand the people who voted for Trump,” Christine Fenno, an Oak Park resident, told the Tribune. While she addressed the crowd, she held a sign made by her daughter that read “Do the Most Good.” Fenno suggested that everyone at the rally talk to a Trump supported in the near future, for nothing more than to figure out why their vote went to him.

The holidays, Fenno said, would be a good time to engage in such conversation if you’re going to be around family members who differ politically from your own views.

She said she understands these will be uncomfortable discussions.

"[There are] a lot of people more than uncomfortable this week — they're scared," she said. "The people who voted for [Trump] have a lot of different concerns. But I need them to know that they weren't concerned enough about certain Americans when they cast that vote."

River Forest Schools Superintendent Ed Condon sent a brief letter to district students, parents, faculty and staff before this week started in which he verbalized something unsettling: for the past week, many of the students in District 90 schools were not only unhappy with the outcome of the election, but scared for their futures.

“Be assured that your school district believes strongly in the importance of inclusion and equality — and that all students, all families and all staff members have an essential place in our school community,” he wrote. “Though we know that pursuing those outcomes is ongoing work, it is essential that all of the members of our school community feel consistently accepted and embraced. Clearly, we all must remain unified in our common pursuit of this goal.”

Oliver Camacho, a counselor at Triton College who was present at Saturday’s rally, told the Tribune many of his own students have voiced their concern about their futures under a Trump presidency.

Many of his students, he explained, are Latino and undocumented immigrants.

“It’s not a time for isolation,” he said. “It’s a time for love and less hate.” He, too, asked rally-goers to make a point of getting to know their neighbors in a time that we may want to just try to forget what’s happening in the outside world.

Mina Lee, 43, took to the makeshift stage Saturday to tell a story about a friend of hers who was harassed by a man when she was eating out in Chicago with her 11-year-old son.

When she rejected the man's advances, she said, he turned instead to her half-Asian son and told him he’d be deported.

"I do not want to live my life in fear," Lee said. "I do not want my children to live in fear."

Clark, who organized this event and earlier this year founded the Suburban Unity Alliance, asked the gathered crowd to do one thing: keep going.

"In order to collaborate, to come together, we have to move past simply 'I'm going to attend a march,' " he said. "I challenge each and every one of you to challenge yourself to go further than simply showing up today."

--

Image via Suburban Unity Alliance website.