Last week, two African American men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, were fatally shot at the hands of police. In response to this, and also to the large number of African American men and women whose lives have been taken by the police and vigilante groups in the US and the hugely disproprionate number of Indigenous Australians who have died in custody, thousands will gather at a peaceful rally at the State Library of Victoria this Sunday, July 17.
One of the rally organisers is Yarramun Conole. "We stand on sacred, sovereign and unceded Black land where Black peoples are the most targeted and the most vulnerable," she wrote in a statement on the rally's Facebook page. "As an Aboriginal woman, it's important to me that we recognise this and bring the #BlackLivesMatter movement to Australia."
Organisers are inviting members of any and every community to the rally, asking only that allies keep a "peaceful mindset".