Vigil for Nabra Hassanen and Charleena Lyles
Partnering organizations include: Counter Balance: ATX, Muslim Solidarity ATX and the Texas Muslim Students' Association (UT). The vigil will end at 9 PM, when those who have come to the mosque to pray will finish their recitation of the Qur'an for the month of Ramadan (khatmul Quran).
Charleena Lyles, mother of four with a fifth on the way and always known as the "life of the party" among her friends, was murdered Sunday by two Seattle police officers, responding to her own emergency call after an attempted burglary. On the other side of the country in Fairfax, Virginia, 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen—devoted student, daughter, sister, friend, and fashion-lover—was kidnapped and murdered in what was plainly an attack borne of racism, Islamophobia, and gendered violence. Local authorities have portrayed it instead as "road rage."
These two atrocities followed the "not guilty" verdict handed down Friday to the killer of 32-year-old Philando Castile, a beloved community member and pillar of the middle school where he worked. A police officer in a St. Paul, Minnesota, suburb, killed Castile on July 6th last year as he complied exactly as required during a minor traffic stop, in front of Castile's girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter.
This is a vigil in honor of Charleena’s and Nabra’s too-short lives and in support of women of color in our town and across the country; it is also in honor of Philando Castile and his family, who have been denied justice. At a time of unrelenting tragedy, trauma, and injustice, we must stand with our African and African American, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities, our Muslim and non-Muslim communities of color, and our immigrant and diasporic communities; we must show up for ourselves and for each other. We need this time to come together, recognize one another’s humanity, and stand alongside each other. We need this moment to grieve together and to restart the unending process of healing together.
Please be respectful of both the mood of the vigil and the setting. We are grateful to Nueces Mosque for hosting the vigil as the month of Ramadan nears its end and Eid approaches; that night, the community will be completing their recitation of the Qur’an and hosting a fundraiser for its reconstruction project. External Event Url
1906 Nueces St, Austin, TX, United States
