United Against Hate

Welcome parties, fund-raisers and schmoozefests are being held throughout the Southland today as delegates to the Democratic National Convention pour into town. But here in the San Fernando Valley, visitors will find a more solemn assembly taking place.

The gathering this morning at Pierce College in Woodland Hills isn’t for the benefit of convention delegates or the accompanying press. But it is a public commemoration of an event the Valley became all too publicly known for one year ago last Thursday. The Aug. 10, 1999, shootings at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills and on a quiet street in nearby Chatsworth shocked the world, as did the arrest the next day of an avowed white supremacist. Buford O. Furrow Jr. is scheduled to be tried in February on charges of murder, attempted murder and hate crimes.

That day of mayhem left Filipino American letter carrier Joseph Ileto dead on his suburban delivery route and three young boys, a teenage day-camp counselor and the Jewish center’s receptionist wounded. It left the Valley known worldwide for the image of a daisy chain of toddlers being led to safety by police officers.

Today Valley residents and others throughout Los Angeles will hold hands again, at least figuratively, to present a united front against hate crimes and gun violence.

This “Unity Over Hate” rally concludes the one-year anniversary “Week Against Hate” that began with the dedication of a Chino Hills post office in honor of Ileto and included a community meeting in East Los Angeles and a candlelight vigil downtown. The rally follows a year of public meetings, speeches and soul-searching that, close to home, led to the formation of the San Fernando Valley Hate Crimes Alliance and, nationwide, the Million Mom March on Washington, D.C., for ‘common-sense” gun control laws.

Today the families of Ileto and the Jewish center shooting victims, local, state and national politicians, religious and community leaders, police officers and ordinary people will commit themselves again to preventing hate crimes. So if visitors are going to remember us for that infamous day last August, remember us for this one as well.

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To Take Action: The Unity Over Hate rally will begin at 10:30 a.m. today at Pierce College, 6201 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills. The rally will be held at the college’s Swisher Park, just inside the Mason Avenue-Victory Boulevard entrance.