The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Dozens of people gathered in the township Cultural Arts Gazebo on January 11 to hold a vigil for those who lost their lives in interactions with agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The “Ice Out For Good” vigil was one of more than 1,000 such vigils and rallies held across the country over the weekend, spurred by the death of Minneapolis resident Reneé Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent on January 7.
Michael Steinbrück, who organized the vigil with Phil Kramer, said people are outraged by the actions of ICE, but, he added, “this is who we are, and this has been long who we are as a country, and there are many who are saying, finally, welcome.”
“You see our lives because their skin is not the same color as ours, because most people here are white, and this is not a change for so many,” he said. “So, now we can all finally stand and be champions of all people.”
Kramer, who said he was not appearing in his capacity as Mayor, said his message was simple.
“Don’t take the bait,” he said. “There are those who want to prevent an election in November. Don’t take the bait.”
“They need a crisis in order to do that,” he said. “Don’t take the bait.”
“They’re going to taunt us, they’re going to be violent themselves, they’re going to push us around,” he said. “Don’t take the bait. Don’t give them an excuse.”
“Protest, protest, protest, but do it peacefully,” Kramer said. “Don’t give them any chance to think that you’re breaking the law. Don’t give them any chance to arrest you. Don’t give them any chance that they can present violence to you.”
“Don’t take the bait,” he said.
Also speaking was Erna Steinbrück, the 91-year-old mother of Michael.
“We have work to do,” she said. “I was listening to the radio, and someone said, there you are, sitting in your comfortable chair; stand up and start screaming. I felt that that was I would like to do.”
“I was born in 1934, so I lived through Roosevelt all the way up to (Pres. Trump),” she said. “He has hurt us, and he continues to hurt us. This ICE mess that’s come into our community is like a cancer. How can we do this to our own people?”
“Thank you for giving us a forum where we can come together and say it’s enough, we will not abide this injustice,” she said.
Pastor Dan Lundquist of Grace United Church of Christ in Flemington noted that he grew up in the Twin Cities of Minnesota and worked in a halfway house in the neighborhood in which Good was killed, “and there’s a lot going on, so having you all stand up and be here tonight in spirit, speaks to all the people in Minneapolis who are standing up tonight and every night by the thousands.”
Lundquist said his daughter is in Minneapolis,
“She has some daycare teachers and aides that need to be escorted in and out of their daycare,” he said. “They’re being brought to their homes to stay as ICE continues to do things by the hundreds.”
“It is the church’s job, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, to be the conscience of the state and not the chaplain of the state,” he said. “Too often we religious are chaplains of the state and I look at Michael (Steinbrück) and his family, Erna, Elizabeth, and his dad, they were consciences of the state.”
“What’s going on in Minneapolis and around the country is wrong,” he said. “Not just wrong, but it’s sinful.”
“I don’t use that word lightly,” he said. “People think of sin as saying a swear word or something. I don’t think of sin like that. I think what’s going on in the name of our government and of our state is sinful and we need to stand up as we’re doing and we need to name it as such and not be afraid to name it to our families, our friends, and our neighbors that it is wrong.”
Here is a video of the vigil:
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