Oxford’s March for America Allows Community Members a Voice

By Carson McKinney
Hottytoddy.com intern

Despite gray skies and rain, Saturday’s third “Oxford March for America” featured dozens of participants advocating for a variety of social movements and organizations.

Nadia and Aidan Bethley gathered dozens of others today on the Square for Oxford’s March for America. Photo by Carson McKinney.

The march began on the Oxford Square. Before and after the march, participants gathered in front of the courthouse and listened to speakers Heather McTeer Toney, the former mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, Michèle Alexandre, an Ole Miss Law Professor and Civil Rights Scholar and Cam Calisch, Students Against Social Injustice member and President of the newly founded Solidarity.

Speaker Michèle Alexandre asks the crowd to bow for a moment of silence during the march. Photo by Carson McKinney. 

“The entire community came together in Oxford for the purpose of elevating one another,” Calisch said. “We don’t have a lot of places to do that here, so just to see a bunch of different organizations binding together for the same purpose is really powerful.”

Indivisible LOU—the Lafayette County, Oxford and University of Mississippi chapter of the nationwide group Indivisible—organized the march. Ellie Campbell from Indivisible LOU emceed the event and helped spread awareness for it through social media and word-of-mouth.

“I think people were feeling a lot of emotions after the Trump election, and a lot of us were not sure what to do with them,” Campbell said. “In the past two years, there has been a ton of progressive activity in the community; a lot of it centered around the senatorial elections. Hopefully we can carry that through to the state and local elections in the fall. We’re all working hard to see where it goes.”