Editors’ Note: Sources in this piece have chosen to remain anonymous and images are digitally altered for privacy and safety reasons. City on a Hill Press is committed to protecting the identity of these sources.
Over 100 students gathered outside UC Santa Cruz’s Science and Engineering Library shortly after 2 p.m. this past Wednesday to attend the “Support Palestine and World Anti-Imperialist Resistance” rally and march.
With keffiyeh scarves on their heads, protesters, students and faculty alike marched from Science Hill to McHenry Library, waving dozens of Palestinian flags, chanting “Free the people, free the land” and “El pueblo, unido jamás será vencido.”
Demonstrators gather outside the Science & Engineering Library, chanting, waving Palestinian flags, and listening to speeches from organizers.
The Revolutionary Student Organization (RSO), a coalition of student activists who strive toward defending vulnerable communities and speaking out on current injustices seen in the U.S., led the demonstration, looking to call attention to the anniversary of heightened violence and humanitarian crisis in Palestine.
“Today, three years ago, Palestinian resistance fighters broke down the apartheid wall after nearly 20 years of refusing to be trapped in an open air prison,” one organizer said through a megaphone in a speech to the crowd.
Demonstrators march through Science Hill on their way toward McHenry Library.
Since October 2023, the Israeli military has killed over 70,000 Palestinians. During that time, two million more have been displaced from their homes in Gaza, every single hospital and university has been at least partially destroyed and more than one in eight children are classified as “chronically malnourished.”
While acknowledging the tragedy of recent history, student organizers and protesters alike emphasized the lengthy historical context of not just Palestine, but several more regions across the world such as Sudan, Congo, and the Philippines experiencing severe violence and oppression that consistently goes underreported by the press. 
Spectators in the Sinsheimer Labs watch demonstrators as they march toward McHenry Library on Steinhart Way.
“It wasn’t just about Palestine,” said Jackie, a first-year politics major. “It was about Sudan. It was about the Philippines. It was about the Congo, and I think [this] will also inspire people to [encourage] activism for those places too.”
RSO was joined by a number of other student activist organizations in support of anti-imperialism. These included the Black Liberation Kore (BLK), Anakbayan, the UC Laboring Undergraduate Coalition, the Arab Student Union, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Young Democratic Socialists of America. Student leaders from BLK and Anakbayan joined RSO in addressing the crowd.
“It’s really hard watching genocide happen through a screen, and it’s also really hard watching our government, our community and the people around us be so complicit with it,” said an RSO member. “But seeing everyone here today makes me really excited. I’m really grateful to have this community here on campus, and I just hope that it continues to spread and thrive.”
Demonstrators write messages using chalk distributed by organizers on the pavement outside of McHenry Library.
Another RSO organizer urged participants to continue to take action after the day of the rally.
“It is one thing to come to rallies and large events like this, but the real work begins after,” he said. “It continues through organizing, resisting, rebelling and revolting to sweep this rotten system off the face of the earth once and for all.”