March for Racial Justice NYC
March for Racial Justice NYC is a left-of-center coalition that organized a Black Lives Matter-aligned protest in New York City on October 1, 2017 that focused on policing, immigration policy, and gentrification. The group operated as a local hub of the national “March for Racial Justice” mobilization, staging a rally in Brooklyn and marching across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall. Reporting on the event described thousands of participants and messaging aligned with broader left-of-center causes. While the group maintains a social media presence, its subsequent activities are unclear. The group is a fiscally sponsored project of the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ), a far-left nonprofit with a history of supporting socialist and Marxist-aligned movements in Latin America and beyond. 1 2 3
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Background and Activities
March for Racial Justice NYC emerged in 2017 as one of several protests in the wake of national anti-police protests and the acquittal earlier that year of the officer who shot Philando Castile. Local news previewed the New York mobilization as part of a nationwide series of demonstrations, with organizers citing the Castile verdict and the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally and subsequent riot as catalysts. The Brooklyn event gathered at Jay Street Plaza in DUMBO before proceeding to Manhattan. 4
The NYC event was positioned as a sister march to the national March for Racial Justice, held on the same day in Washington, D.C. The event was originally scheduled for September 30, 2017, but was rescheduled to October 1 due to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. 5 6
March for Racial Justice NYC used social platforms and a crowdfunding campaign to coordinate logistics. The group’s GoFundMe page outlined the plan, listed the meeting point and time, and solicited small-dollar contributions to cover permits, staging, security, and related expenses. The GoFundMe page raised $2,000 of a $7,000 goal. Fundraising was organized by Brenna Freestone-Gilbert “on behalf of” Daniele Kohn, who was listed as the beneficiary of the GoFundMe page. 7 8
March for Racial Justice published a platform on a now-archived website that called for a variety of far-left positions on racial issues, policing, housing, and healthcare, and endorsed the removal of “Confederate and colonial monuments,” stating that all such monuments promote white supremacy. 9
The march was endorsed by many far-left organizations, including Black Lives Matter NYC, Jobs with Justice, CodePink, and Common Cause. 10
Alliance for Global Justice
March For Racial Justice NYC and the national March for Racial Justice groups were listed as among the many far-left organizations operating under the umbrella of the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ), a controversial fiscal sponsor that supports numerous radical-left causes and activist groups. AfGJ has sponsored groups with alleged ties to foreign militant organizations and far-left movements across Latin America and the Middle East. In January 2023, the Washington Examiner reported that the Ford Foundation ceased all grantmaking to AfGJ after ‘years of warnings’ about the organization’s ties to a Palestinian group with terrorist designations under U.S. law. 11 3
March for Racial Justice NYC is not an independent nonprofit and operates under AfGJ’s legal and tax status, it does not file independent tax returns with the IRS, publish audited financial statements, or disclose its internal governance. The group’s revenue sources, expenditures, and budget scale remain unclear. 3