At twin events in downtown Tampa and St. Pete, they spoke about how, while the Nazi, KKK and r/The_Donald elements sent a message of hate and anti-minority violence across the globe on Friday and Saturday, the rest of America ought to come together to passionately counter that ugly message.
During a twilight rally Sunday night at Demens Landing, a park on St. Pete's downtown waterfront, Deputy Mayor Kanika Tomalin said she and her children recently returned from a trip abroad, and that the words on the site of the Statue of Liberty — and what they mean in the age of Trump — struck her.
“That is our invitation. It's our promise. It's our promise to the world, it's our promise to our nation. It's our promise to each other," she said. "Sanctuary: not a word to be ashamed of. Sanctuary: opportunity; a golden door."
Tomalin was referencing the use of the word sanctuary in the immigration debate, in which the right tries to demonize cities that don't target undocumented immigrants, which are designated — and demonized as — sanctuary cities.
"I wonder if the world sees that door as closing," she said. "We can only expect our world to think, to understand and believe that which we believe ourselves. So as we add Charlottesville to the list, to the list of American cities that tell the world who we are, who we aspire to be, not the promises we all make, not the rhetoric our best poets write, but who we are, how we live, the choices we make.”
What happened in Charlottesville could have happened in Tampa or St. Pete, given that it was a debate over removal of a Confederate monument that sparked the chaos, officials said. After all, Hillsborough County just voted to remove a Jim Crow-era monument to Confederate soldiers from a courthouse annex in downtown Tampa that many civil rights leaders said was evocative of institutionalized racism.
St. Pete City Council Chair Darden Rice noted how Charlottesville's city council, like St. Pete's, is forward-thinking, but their decision to move a statue of Robert E. Lee was met with a white nationalist backlash that any other city south-of-the-Mason-Dixon, including St. Pete, could face.
She noted how, like other images from history, Saturday's image of a car plowing into a crowd in Charlottesville will seer its way into history.
“It is our history; an archive of who we are, even when it's a hideous portrait of what we don't want our country to be; an ugly look in the mirror that denies our exceptionalism," she said. "The contorted faces of hate, of segregationists yelling, bullying and taunting Elizabeth Eckford as she bravely made her way to high school in Little Rock in 1957. We saw those faces yesterday. The Jackson, Mississippi lunch counter sitting as Anne Moody endured an angry white crowd pouring flour, salt and sugar on top of her head. We saw that yesterday. Bull Connor. High-pressure hoses, police dogs and nightsticks, we saw the inheritors of that hate and violence in full display yesterday.”
Not lost on the speakers or the crowd was President Donald Trump and the xenophobic message that helped get him elected.
After all, Trump had the support of David Duke and other white nationalists during his run and has stocked his cabinet with white nationalists like Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka and Steve Miller — all while using his bully pulpit to target Muslims, Mexicans and transgendered individuals.
“It didn't happen in our city, it didn't happen in our state, but it happened to us," said St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman. "Because we are all in this together. And tonight, once again, we come together to mourn not just the loss of life, but the rise of hate and hate crimes, hate fueled in part — and I don't say this lightly — the words and actions of our very own president, a man who rose to the White House by questioning the very legitimacy of our first black president; a man who pledges to 'make America great again' by targeting people who've long contributed to our greatness.”
Kriseman, a progressive Democrat, is seeking reelection in a six-candidate race that will be decided in the primary (and will likely result in a November runoff). At least two of his opponents, former mayor Rick Baker, a conservative Republican, and Uhuru-associated Jesse Nevel were spotted in the audience.
Baker later issued the following statement on social media:
"As leaders we must set an example of tolerance, working everyday to unite people instead of dividing them. Please join me in praying for yesterday's victims – racism has no place in America."
Kriseman has been outspoken in his opposition to Trump, and said Sunday that St. Petersburg does not welcome hate.
“Those warped young people in Virginia, whether they refer to themselves as white supremacists or klansmen or Nazis, should know that they do not stand a chance here," he said. "Not a chance. Love always trumps hate here.”
While neither Kriseman nor any other speaker brought up the mayor's toughest opponent, Baker, at the event, a close Kriseman ally, Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch — while not mentioning Baker, the GOP or even Trump by name — said it's important to pay attention to those who speak out against hate, and to not elect those who don't.
“Intolerance and bigotry has to be called out for what it is, not tempered in a cloud of denial, doublespeak or silence," he said. “Remember: at the end of the day, all politics is local. Remember that when you enter the polls.”
This article appears in Aug 10-17, 2017.