RED BANK: DRAG QUEENS STRUT THEIR STUFF
Octavia Anyae danced amid the audience at a “Drag Queen Open Mic” to conclude Pride month in Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park Friday night.
RED BANK: FAMILY-FRIENDLY DRAG EVENT SET
The Pride flag flying at Red Bank borough hall earlier this month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
While other locales have their knickers in a twist over LGBTQ issues, Red Bank is going all-in with a “family friendly” drag queen event in celebration of Pride month.
RED BANK: FAMILIES PACK DRAG READING
With supporters standing on the porch outside, drag queen Harmonica Sunbeam, above, entertained about two dozen families who packed a children’s story time at the Red Bank Public Library Monday evening.
RED BANK: SCOTUS DECISION DRAWS PROTEST
About 150 supporters of women’s reproductive rights gathered in downtown Red Bank for a “community speak-out” on the the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade Friday evening.
RED BANK: SLURS HURLED AT EVENT ATTENDEES
A handful of protesters shouted “pedophile” and other slurs at Red Bank Public Library patrons as they arrived for a childrens’ “Drag Queen Story Hour” event Wednesday morning, library Director Elenyi Glykis told redbankgreen.
RED BANK: HUNDREDS RALLY FOR WOMEN
About 1,000 women, men and children marched and rallied for women’s reproductive rights in downtown Red Bank Saturday.
In conjunction with hundreds of similar events nationwide, the Red Bank gathering, organized by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey and the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, focused on abortion rights as the Supreme Court begins a new term Monday with pivotal cases on the docket.
Chanting “Ruth sent us” and “my body, my choice,” participants marched from the train station to Broad Street and then gathered in Riverside Gardens Park, where speakers, including borough Councilwoman Kate Triggiano, called for the election of women’s rights supporters.
Check out redbankgreen’s photos, below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
RED BANK: RALLY DEMANDS VAX/MASK CHOICE
Marchers gathered on the sidewalk outside Riverview Medical Center Monday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
About 150 proponents of “choice” regarding COVID-19 vaccines and masks protested outside Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank early Monday afternoon.
The midday protest followed a rally in Riverside Gardens Park, where god, the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment were also invoked.
RED BANK: RALLY SLAMS POSTAL CHANGES
About 30 protesters assembled at the post office on Shrewsbury Avenue in Red Bank at noon Friday to voice alarm over recent changes at the postal service.
RED BANK: BORDER ‘EMERGENCY’ DISPUTED
About 150 protesters gathered at Riverside Gardens Park in Red Bank at noon Monday, President’s Day, to oppose President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on America’s border with Mexico.
RED BANK: ANTI-KAVANAUGH RALLY SLATED
Opponents of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court plan to rally in Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park as part of a “walk-out” movement Thursday afternoon, redbankgreen has learned.
RED BANK: RALLY FOR IMMIGRANTS SLATED
A “unity and peace” demonstration drew several hundred to Riverside Gardens Park in August. A similar event is slated for Friday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
RED BANK: VIGIL SPEAKERS AIM AT GUN LAWS
Held in response to the the sniper attack that killed 59 concertgoers and wounded hundreds more in Las Vegas Sunday night, the event ended with a shared lighting of candles. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Once again, Red Bank area residents gathered for a march and vigil Wednesday night to protest senseless, gun-related violence in America.
This time, the brief event, attended by about 50 participants, had a more consistently political, rather than spiritual, tone.
RED BANK: VIGIL AGAINST VIOLENCE PLANNED
Red Bank-area religious and political leaders are once again organizing an anti-violence vigil, this time in the aftermath of the Las Vegas sniper attack that killed at least 58 concertgoers and wounded hundreds more in Las Vegas Sunday night.
RED BANK: MARCHERS UNITE AGAINST HATRED
Hundreds gathered at borough hall for a rally before a march and vigil, including Mx Rowan, below, who wore a yarmulke with the Hebrew alphabet. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Answering the racist and anti-Semitic shouts heard last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, about 400 Red Bank-area residents gathered Wednesday night to affirm their belief in love over hate.
“We’re all standing here together united in our humanity,” said Hazim Yassin, of the American Muslim Action Network, at a vigil in Ralph ‘Johnny Jazz’ Park on Shrewsbury Avenue that followed a one-mile march from borough hall. More →
RED BANK: RALLY TARGETS RACISM & TRUMP
Several hundred protesters assembled at Riverside Gardens Park Saturday evening. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Hours after violent clashes between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, about 150 local residents and community leaders gathered in Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park for a “unity and peace” demonstration Saturday night.
But unlike a rally held in the West Front Street park one day after the start of the Trump Administration, this one did not avoid mentioning Trump’s name, as several speakers laid responsibility for the day’s outburst of hatred and deadly violence in Virginia on the president.
RED BANK: WOMEN UNITE AGAINST (UNNAMED)
Several hundred participants flowed into Riverside Gardens Park for the Greater Red Bank Women’s Initiative Rally Saturday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
One day after the start of a new administration in Washington, D.C., hundreds of protesters gathered in Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park to push back against its promised agenda.
But if the policies of newly inaugurated President Donald Trump were foremost on their minds, speaker after speaker at the event avoided mentioning him by name.
RED BANK: WOMEN PLAN ‘NONPARTISAN’ RALLY
A gathering to reaffirm Red Bank’s “inclusiveness and tolerance” is planned at Riverside Gardens Park the day after the Trump inauguration. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[REPOSTING OF JANUARY 9 ARTICLE, with additional details about who’s speaking.]
By JOHN T. WARD
A group of Red Bank-area women have obtained an OK to hold an open-air rally for human rights and other concerns one day after the Trump inauguration.
The newly formed group, called the Greater Red Bank Women’s Initiative, won approval Monday from the borough government’s special events committee to hold a rally in Riverside Gardens Park on Saturday, January 21, according to Ellen Herman, one of the organizers.
RED BANK: WOMEN PLAN ‘NONPARTISAN’ RALLY
A gathering to reaffirm Red Bank’s “inclusiveness and tolerance” is planned at Riverside Gardens Park the day after the Trump inauguration. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A group of Red Bank-area women have obtained an OK to hold an open-air rally for human rights and other concerns one day after the Trump inauguration.
The newly formed group, called the Greater Red Bank Women’s Initiative, won approval Monday from the borough government’s special events committee to hold a rally in Riverside Gardens Park on Saturday, January 21, according to Ellen Herman, one of the organizers.
RED BANK: WEST SIDERS MARCH IN PROTEST
About three dozen protesters marched through Red Bank Saturday morning to object to rising property taxes, a proposed spray park at Bellhaven Nature Area, borough hiring practices and what they termed police “aggressiveness.”
Organizer Freddie Boynton said the event, spotlighting concerns of West Siders, was not meant to be partisan, though it called for “new leadership” at borough hall. “There’s a lot of frustration on this side of town,” said Boynton, a retired DPW employee. “We’re not being treated like the rest of the town is.” (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
DEER-HUNT LAWS SPUR SHREWSBURY PROTEST
A deer crosses a Shrewsbury street in 2010. (Photo by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)
Local and state laws that allow deer hunting closer to housing than in the past drew protesters to Shrewsbury on Sunday, the Asbury Park Press reports Monday.
Led by Sycamore Avenue resident Dede Lichtig, about a dozen protesters from Shrewsbury, Fair Haven, Middletown and elsewhere voiced concern about a shrinking of the deer hunting safety zone passed earlier this year by the state Legislature, as well the borough governments decision to maintain its hunting law, the Press reports.
OCCUPIERS OCCUPIED WITH ORGANIZING
About three dozen people turned out for Saturday’s initial meeting of Occupy Red Bank at Marine Park, an event led by Connor Walby, center below. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Any expectations that a gathering dubbed Occupy Red Bank would attract throngs of longterm visitors similar to those protesting near Wall Street in Manhattan and elsewhere around the world proved mistaken Saturday.
Instead, a brief, low-key assemblage of about three-dozen people lived up, or down, to billing, as nothing more than an opportunity for participants to air concerns about economic and political trends, and to agree to meet again.
“The strength of this is what we agree on,” Connor Walby, who in his word “facilitated” the discussion, told the attendees arrayed in a loose circle on a concrete pad in Marine Park. “We agree that this is a broken system.”
ZIPPRICH SPOTLIGHTS ABORTION PROTEST
The Planned Parenthood clinic on Newman Springs Road is the purported terminus of a protest walk planned for March 12. Below, Councilman Ed Zipprich. (Click to enlarge)
The Red Bank council’s rubber-stamping of some two dozen requests for public events was interrupted Monday night when Councilman Ed Zipprich raised security issues in connection with a planned anti-abortion march scheduled for next month.
Invoking the recent shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords and a push by New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith to have the federal government redefine rape in an effort to limit access to abortions, Zipprich expressed concern that the march might attract someone bent on violence.
ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUP PICKETS FUR STORE
Protesters displayed posters and a carcass depicting animal abuse.
A handful of animal rights activists affiliated with a group called Caring Activists Against Fur demonstrated outside Winters Furs on Monmouth Street Saturday afternoon.
Protest organizer Anthony Botti, of Atlantic Highlands, said Winters Furs was targeted “because it’s a visible location in the central Jersey area.”
He said Saturday was selected “because it’s when the big shopping frenzy starts. This is when the animal torturers try to maximize their profits.”