By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Activist Philipos Melaku-Bello speaks to a parent with a Christian school tour in 2018.
The vigil has been going on since 1981. Trump ordered its dismantling after a right-wing journalist pointed it out to him.
A peace vigil that has been held near the White House since 1981 has ended after the Trump administration ordered its removal.
Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter.
Park Police took everything at the vigil site down Sunday morning, the Associated Press reports. The removal was part of the clearing of homeless encampments in Washington, D.C., but a volunteer staffing the site said it is not an encampment.
"The difference between an encampment and a vigil is that an encampment is where homeless people live," Philipos Melaku-Bello told the AP. "As you can see, I don't have a bed. I have signs, and it is covered by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression." He is in touch with attorneys about possible legal action.
The site had a small tent and a banner reading “Live by the bomb, die by the bomb,” the AP reports. Activist William Thomas started the vigil in 1981, and it is likely the longest continuous antiwar protest in the U.S. Thomas died in 2009, and then Melaku-Bello and others took overthe site, staffing it 24 hours a day to avoid actions like Sunday’s.
Donald Trump was unaware of the site until Brian Glenn, a reporter with the conservative network Real America’s Voice, pointed it out to him Friday. “Just out front of the White House is a blue tent that originally was put there to be an anti-nuclear tent for nuclear arms,” Glenn said, according to the AP. “It's kind of morphed into more of an anti-American, sometimes anti-Trump at many times.” Trump then told his staff to have it taken down.
A White House statement to the AP called the vigil setup a “hazard to those visiting the White House and the surrounding areas.” Its dismantling is part of Trump’s takeover of policing in D.C. and what he calls “beautification” efforts in the city.
Glenn also told Trump the site had rats and could be used to hide weapons, which Melaku-Bello called misinformation. “No weapons were found,” he told the news service. “He said that it was rat-infested. Not a single rat came out as they took down the cinder blocks."
Charlie Kirk DID say stoning gay people was the 'perfect law' — and these other heinous quotes