BY ARDY BLANDFORD
DENVER, Colorado - On November 25 more than 1,500 people attended a "rally against racism" to protest the killing of Oumar Dia, a West African immigrant who was shot to death. Nathan Thill, who calls himself a "warrior" in a race war, and a "national socialist," publicly confessed to murdering Dia on November 18, simply because he was Black.

According to the affidavit for his arrest, Thill approached Dia saying, "Are you a n --? Are you ready to die like a n --?" He also shot and paralyzed Jeannie VanVelkinburgh, a woman who was standing at a bus stop and who tried to help Dia. Thill and his alleged accomplice Jeremiah Barnum, are being charged with six felonies from murder to ethnic intimidation.

At the November 25 rally a taped message was broadcast from VanVelkinburgh, who told the crowd she had no regrets, and "if I had to do this all over again, I would." The demonstration was organized by Mayor Wellington Webb and local religious leaders. Other speakers included Gov. Roy Romer, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, along with other local leaders. Activists organized several other events, including the November 21 funeral for Oumar Dia where 500 people attended. Ahmad Nabhan, leader of the Islamic Center of Colorado where Dia's service was held, called for the death penalty. This was also one of the demands raised at a march and rally held the next day.

Nearly 400 people participated in the November 22 action, which was organized by Alvertis Simmons, head of the local organizing committee of the Million Man March, and Jamal Muhammad, former minister of Denver's Mosque No. 51. One of the chants of the march was "Hey, hey, ho, ho -skinheads, you've got to go!" That evening some 400 people attended the Denver NAACP Youth Council's and Urban League's "Stop the Violence, Start the Love" rally at a local church. Some 150 people attended a November 24 rally organized by several oppressed nationalities and social-justice groups on the Auraria campus at Metropolitan State College.

On Thanksgiving morning, just two days after the city's "rally against racism," six skinheads attacked Shomie Francis, a 26-year-old Aurora resident. She told the Denver Post, "All I heard was something n--, and I said, `What did you say? .. What's the problem, are you guys skinheads?' and they told me `Yeah,' and then they started hitting on me." All six suspects were arrested for investigation of ethnic intimidation and assault.

"The upcoming Martin Luther King Day March takes on added importance in light of these racist attacks," according to Jamal Muhammad. He said Denver has a history of large turnouts for anti-racist protests, including in 1992 when thousands marched in opposition to a Ku Klux Klan rally.

Ardy Blandford is a member of United Auto Workers Local 270 in Des Moines, Iowa.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home