On top of the bridge overlooking 281 West on Isom Road, the Party for Socialism and Liberation rallied on Sunday to advocate for a free Palestine and students like Mahmoud Khalil who protesters claimed have been stripped of their rights. Right above the protest of over 50 participants was the newly established billboard paid for by Liberation News that read “Unite & Stand with Palestine!”
Blocking the left lane of the bridge overpass, protestors chanted messages that the PSL stands for immigrant rights and Palestine’s freedom.
“We cannot and will not stand by while the genocide of the Palestinian people continues. I am enraged and horrified by the endless death and destruction being inflicted on Palestinians and their homes. So let’s make another thing clear, San Antonio does not stand with genocide or ethnic cleansing,” said a protestor who wished to remain anonymous.
The Palestine billboards have been a recurring endeavor the PSL has been advocating for. A member of the PSL, Samina Wasifuddin, asked if they could help her find a way to put up a billboard in San Antonio again.
“They immediately helped me, no questions asked, and we’ve been able to put up about 10 all over San Antonio with the help of some Palestinian-owned businesses and community members here in San Antonio,” Wasifuddin said.“I had saw a WhatsApp post being done in another city. And I thought, ‘Well, why can’t we do this here in San Antonio?’
“And I had never done a GoFundMe and didn’t know how to do it. I just knew I wanted to get this done in San Antonio and saw these people doing the work in San Antonio and thought, ‘Well, they’re the people that can help me get this done.’ And throughout the year, we kept putting up billboards.”
“We want to keep Palestine unavoidable in the city. We wanted to make it to keep it at the forefront, so we want to keep it going. We need to show people that the Palestine movement is still alive in the city,” Haneen, a fellow activist, said about the billboard.
Attendants wore black, green and red — the colors of the Palestinian flag. PSL members who organized the event predominantly wore red and carried clipboards to hand out protest signs.
“People in Palestine are working-class people just like I am,” Marisa, an organizer who stood by a banner hanging from the bridge, said of her participation at the protest. “You know, we’re just trying to get by. And you know there are the powers that be that are trying to oppress us and trying to hold us back from feeling liberated — being liberated — being able to just live day to day without, you know, concerns of, ‘How am I gonna keep my house? How am I gonna put food on the table for my kids?’ You know, it’s really frustrating to see that our country is attacking a country that is just trying to live just like we are.”
Those who passed by the protest in their vehicles honked in recognizing the people who attended the event. Looking through a windshield, one could witness protestors parting ways, concluding the affair that took place on Isom Road.
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