Photos and CO AIM speech from "We are America" March

Colorado AIM has a decades long alliance with the Chicano Community of Denver. The alliance was first formed by the late Corky Gonzales and continues to this day. Colorado AIM was invited to particpate in the We are America march and we were honored to march and stand in solidarity with over 75,000 our long time allies and relatives.

Here are a few photos from today's march

The marchers at Viking Park prepare to start.

The siren sounds and the march begins

Security leads the marchers down Speer Boulevard

The Marchers pass under Speer Boulevard bridge

A crowd is already at the capitol and cheer as the marchers approach

Former mayor, Federico Pena, rallies the crowd

Performers from Su Teatro take the stage.

Glenn Morris delivers speech on behalf of Colorado AIM

Colorado AIM members stand on stage as Glenn Morris delivers speech.

Speech given by Glenn Morris at May Day March

There has been a lot of talk lately about what America is, and who is an American. Let's be clear, America stretches from the Arctic to Argentina, and, as indigenous peoples of this land, we have something to say about who an American is. A friend of ours from Ghana was in town last week and he passed along one of their proverbs – we provide it especially for Tom Tancredo and for all of his invader friends. The proverb says that "a visitor doesn't get to lock the gate." Tancredo is not only a visitor to our land, but he is an unwelcome, racist visitor, and he does not get to decide when the gate gets to be locked.

There has also been a lot of talk lately about flags. That stars and stripes flag, that doesn't represent us or this land. THIS (holding up an eagle feather staff) is the first flag of our homeland. We ask people when they wave that (U.S.) flag to be
conscious of not only what it has stood for, but what it can stand for.

When we say that WE ARE AMERICA, we all must make a choice. That choice is between
embracing what that flag has meant, THE OLD AMERICA, with its invasion, and Manifest Destiny, and broken treaties and lies, or to embrace THE NEW AMERICA – an America of equality and justice, of rights for native peoples, for workers, for elders and for children, and for a clean environment.

If people want to come to our homeland to embrace the OLD AMERICA, we cannot support that, but if people want to come to build a NEW AMERICA, we are with you. This movement for a NEW AMERICA is real, it is emerging right before us, it is rising, it is standing and it is on the move – from Evo Morales in Bolivia to the
Zapatistas and Andres Lopez-Obrador in Mexico, it is moving. From the Mohawks resisting the militarization of the US-Canada border to the Tohono-O'odham resisting
the militarization of the US- Mexico border, it is moving. From Hugo Chavez in Venuzuela, and Ollanta Humala in Peru, to the tens of thousands of us right here in Denver, it is moving.

We can realize a NEW AMERICA, based on mutual respect and cooperation, based on human rights and economic justice – it can happen, it must happen. We are making it happen, and we must not stop; for our future generations, we cannot stop. The future does not belong to fear and hate and xenophobia; it belongs to hope and to
justice -- it belongs to us. ¡Adelanate! [Forward!]