Texas Activists Peacefully Protest Border Wall

By Ayana Byrd Aug 14, 2017

On Saturday (August 12), as President Donald Trump’s supporters descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, in the name of White supremacy, approximately 1,000 people marched in a multiracial, peaceful action against Trump’s proposed border wall in Mission, Texas.

Mission is a small city situated along the U.S.-Mexican border. Home to approximately 80,000 people, it is located in the Rio Grande Valley, where sixty miles of the wall are set to be constructed, based on current plans.

The march began before sunrise at Mission’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church. From there, the participants—organized in part by the Sierra Club’s Borderlands campaigncrossed the Rio Grande levee shouting slogans in English and Spanish.

The march covered four miles, ending at La Lomita Chapel. According to The New York Times, the 19th century structure "was originally intended as a sign of friendship between America and Mexico." Per The Washington Post, the border wall would seal La Lomita on the Mexcian side of the levee, under the current proposal.

“We might seem small and insignificant. Maybe we are,” 19-year-old Rio Grande Valley native Anthoney Saenz told the Post, “But when our voices come together, when we band together as a community to try to get a voice out there, we have to hope we get heard.”

Below, moments from the march:

A number of protestors drew attention to plans for the wall to run through the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge. As Colorlines has reported, an 18-foot levee wall would run almost three miles through the land. It is slated for the first phase of construction.