Continuing to fight for Josiah Lawson

At the 22nd vigil, Josiah Lawson is remembered through Cool Runnings

Honoring Josiah Lawson and black history month, the 22nd vigil of his passing was held on Feb. 15 at the Arcata United Methodist Church. The community of Justice for Josiah hosted a movie, Cool Runnings, which was based off of a true story of the first Jamaican bobsledding team.

Jazmin Sandoval, president of Associated Students, joined the Justice For Josiah committee a year and a half ago to help bring justice.

“I think this is a way to show solidarity and bring the community to have a safe space where people can really remember Josiah, and that could have been me or any other student,” Sandoval said.

Sandoval said she wants to make sure that not only are they wanting justice for Josiah, but justice for any students that deserve to be treated equally.

“I just like to come in solidarity to show support for Michelle-Charmaine and try to pressure the law enforcement to push his case forward and demand justice for Charmaine,” Sandoval said.

Students received free pizza from J4J members to go along with their movie. The committee was also selling shirts and pins that said Justice for Josiah, and let students borrow blankets for the cold.

Xiomara Fambrough, a 25-year-old who recently moved to Arcata, joined the community and took part in her first vigil for David Josiah.

“I come to events like these because I want to support my community no matter what community that is, no matter how new I am to the community,” Fambrough said. “It is really important to me because I know that’s the real way the world is going to change.”

Justice for Josiah has been communicated throughout the community, dispersing the story multiple times. Fambrough heard of Justice for Josiah as soon as she stepped foot into Arcata.

“I heard about Justice for Josiah and the unfortunates of the event leading up to what happened to him,” Fambrough said. “Everyone I have talked to has so much details about it because there are flyers everywhere, people talking about it and not letting his name fall.”

Jill Larrabee organizes all of the Justice for Josiah vigils, was present at the event and everyone feel welcomed. Larrabee organizes the vigils every 15th of the month.

“We wanted to bring families together and eat food together while watching a movie that relates to both black history month and the background of Josiah’s heritage of being Jamaican,” Larrabee said.

Like many other people who want justice for students like Josiah, Larrabee had words of wisdom of her own for HSU students.

“It is extremely important to be vocal, not be silenced and keep going forward,” Larrabee said. “In any of these issues going on, there is so much injustice and evil in the world, we need to get together, and as a community come together to fight for justice. We have to fight, just fight for what we want until we get it.”