PHILADELPHIA – Activists gathered here in large numbers again Tuesday – this time in much more diverse crowds than previous days, and focused specifically on issues affecting Black communities – to challenge the Democratic Party as it prepared to nominate Hillary Clinton as its presidential candidate.

In the morning, a rally against gun violence featured former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords and civil rights champion Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who addressed the crowd alongside mothers of children lost to gun violence.

A national coalition of organizations that primarily work with women of color hosted a “Women Speak Out” conference to bring visibility to female leaders; campaigns against poverty, war and other violence; pay equity and a living wage, and for the passage of legislation like the RISE out of Poverty Act, which would make ending child poverty the purpose of welfare.

“Look at the history of any movement. They always put men out front, and it’s always the women who do the work. We don’t get the credit, but we do work,” said Reverend Annie Chambers of the Spiritual Love Ministry in Washington and Baltimore, who spoke during Women Speak Out.

At 74 years old, Chambers said she has been a Black Panther and participated in the struggle for civil rights for 58 years. As a self proclaimed revolutionary, she has been a strong supporter of Bernie Sanders for president, but will be voting for Hillary Clinton in November.

“This man [Bernie Sanders] got out of his motorcade and walked down Pennsylvania Avenue: one of the worst streets in Baltimore city, in the middle of the Freddie Gray uprising… but we didn’t get him, and because we don’t have a strong third party in this country, I’m going to vote for Hillary Clinton,” said Chambers. “But I’m going to try to have my feet up her butt as much as possible.”

In the afternoon, Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein addressed a crowd of thousands rallying for “Bernie or Bust.” Stein called for shrinking the military budget, divesting from wars overseas and establishing an arms embargo in the Middle East; halting any new fossil fuel pipelines; establishing a $15 minimum wage and a sustainable food system; bailing out students mired in debt; instituting free public higher education; opening a welcoming path to citizenship for immigrants; ensuring universal healthcare, a right to low-cost public transportation, and job creation through a “Green New Deal,” which would switch America to 100 percent renewable energy use by 2030.

Stein closed her speech calling for change in addressing police brutality and militarization. “How do we put an end to police violence? We change the culture of policing, we demilitarize the police, we create civilian review boards that have the power of subpoena and to hire and fire, and we create a national commission on truth and reconciliation so we can get down to the bottom of this problem: a crisis of racism that has not gone away since the criminal institution of slavery,” said Stein, receiving loud applause from the crowd.

“And we call for reparations as a part of this discussion. We must do justice to the African American people, and to the Native American people on whose backs, on whose labor, on whose blood, sweat, tears, creativity, vision this country has been built. America’s true exceptionalism is that we are a diverse nation from all corners of the world where we come together and affirm our common humanity.”

Stein also had words for anyone doubting the relevance of the Green Party ticket, and for Clinton supporters.

“When people tell you ‘we can never possibly make a difference, were so powerless, we don’t count in this discussion,’ well, Bernie showed them the truth about that. Where did Donald Trump come from? [Right-wing extremism] is a response to the economic misery of Clinton policies,” she concluded.

Later on Tuesday afternoon, around 5,000 Black demonstrators and allies with the Black DNC Resistance March made its way from North Philadelphia down Broad Street to make a stand for Black lives, chanting “Don’t vote for Hillary, she’s killing Black people.”

“[Clinton] literally is killing Black people, and she’s trying to sweep it under the rug despite her support of the 1994 crime bill, which she tries to act like she’s moved away from, but we can’t – as a people – forget how she was complicit in that,” said Megan Malachi, an organizer for the march with one of many coalition groups.

“We’re also speaking out against police terrorism, and policies like ‘stop and frisk’ which are major problems here in Philadelphia, but also issues of economic inequality like gentrification and the underfunding of our schools as well as the school to prison pipeline,” added Malachi. As for addressing the argument that “not voting for Clinton is a vote for Trump,” she rejected such a notion.

“I think that’s not even a legitimate conversation or even a legitimate argument. I think that one of the reasons why we’re in this space that we’re in right now is because we kept up that same narrative of the lesser evil. We are in a political moment where we can push the envelope, we can dismantle not only the racist neoconservative Republican Party, but also the racist and equally destructive neoliberalism of the Democratic Party.

Seeing right through the two-party system, Malachi concluded: “We can actually sit down and work on creating solutions that speak to the aspirations of the Black working class and also other communities of color – something that has not been properly addressed before.”

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