Our Lenten Vigil

For 6 Monday nights in Lent, Streams of Justice folks set up the gallows on the corner of Broadway and Commercial as part of a lenten series of vigils. Each night we hung something - an object connected with homelessness or poverty (e.g., squeegee, sleeping bag, shopping cart), or the manequin. We stood around the gallows with candles, put up posters about local poverty and handed out leaflets. Each week the leaflet focused on a different aspect of the ways that laws or
institutional structures keep people poor and homeless. The main
purpose was to bear witness to the structural injustice that is
normalized in our social patterns and the ways these negatively impact
the lives of our neighbors, and to confess our own complicity in those
structures through our silence and support. Each night we passed out
over 100 leaflets to people passing by, and the striking visual image
of the gallows had many people stopping to figure out what was going
on. These were good occasions for us to be out in the public together,
giving expression to our commitment to social justice and solemn
resistance.

Thanks to all who participated in any of these vigils.

(See other images on our new Zooomr site.)