Interfaith residents of Elk Grove, Calif. gathered on March 11 for a prayer vigil to honor two elderly Sikh community members who were gunned down early this month during their routine walk through the neighborhood. One of the victims in the shooting, 67-year-old Surinder Singh, suffered fatal wounds while his friend, 78-year-old Gurmej Atwal, remains in critical condition.
East Stockton Boulevard, a busy Elk Grove road was temporarily closed to traffic as residents of different ethnicities and religions lit candles and listened as a series of speakers, including the grandson and granddaughters of Singh, spoke solemnly about the tragic loss of their family member.
Many members of the community fear that the shootings were a hate-motivated crime and that the two might have been mistaken for people of Muslim faith. Just feet away from where the two were shot, Sikh and Muslim residents called for interfaith acceptance and respect.
Not In Our Town features this video of the Elk Grove community standing up to religious intolerance.
Blog
March 18, 2011 - 3:04pm
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Victor Hwang speak to hate crime victims and the larger community.
March 10, 2011 - 6:34pm
From SacBee.com: Navi Kaur, granddaughter of shooting victim Surinder Singh, said "our grandfather wore his turban proudly. Our community will continue to wear their turbans proudly... . It is not acceptable to target anyone based on their appearance, religion or color of their skin." Read more.
Elk Grove, Calif. residents of multiple faiths will come together for a prayer vigil this Friday at the intersection of East Stockton Boulevard and Geneva Point Drive, where two elderly Sikh friends were gunned down during their routine afternoon walk last Friday afternoon.
February 27, 2011 - 5:03pm
Gunn High School students sang, Lowell High School students danced, Olympia, Wash. citizens mobilized every facet of the community, and in Newark, Calif., as in Tucson, Ariz., there were angels.
Here at Not In Our Town, we highlight communities standing together to fight hate. In our 15 years of making films, we have documented a number of proactive, creative and peaceful responses to hate groups, including the Kansas hate group known as the Westboro Baptist Church (Fred Phelps' family) and white supremacist groups such as Aryan Nations, the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Movement.
February 25, 2011 - 1:10pm
Update 2/25: Lena Pyssina provided a version of this video with English subtitles here.
Local Project Kesher groups are launching nearly 20 Not In Our Town coalitions in cities across the former Soviet Union. Project Kesher unites 150 grassroots women's organizations that serve more than 6,000 women from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia and Israel.
The Russian cities of Kineshma, Oryol, Ryazan, Kursk, Vladikavkaz, Volograd and Balakovo have already launched multi-faith, multi-ethnic coalitions using the Not In Our Town model. This month, women leaders in two cities in the Ukraine—Dnepropetrovsk and Cherkassy—are rolling out their coalitions as well.