Lyrics of “No one is getting left behind,” “We got the power,” and “You do not carry this alone” reverberate through the Iowa City Pedestrian Mall, as roughly 30 community members held onto one another, singing with one another in solidarity and for various acts of violence in Iowa City.
A series of community organizers from Singing Resistance Iowa City and Prairieland’s Freedom Funds, a nonprofit organization that helps immigrants post bail and pay bonds, led attendees in song, in English and in Spanish for International Workers’ Day, helping to provide a voice for immigrants and immigrant families.
Steven Gross, community organizer for Singing Resistance Iowa City, a national organization that uses song as a form of public resistance against violence and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, said the event was organized to create a space for individuals to come together and invite emotion and tenderness.
Gross said they wanted to bring the community together to grieve the gun violence committed on the Ped Mall on April 19, which injured five individuals, three of whom are University of Iowa students, and to remember the arrest of Jorge Gonzalez Ochoa, who was detained by ICE agents in Bread Garden Market in September 2025.
“We are here today to grieve the gun violence that was committed there almost two weeks ago. We grieve and hold the pain of the people who were shot and injured,” Gross said.
Gross said these forms of violence are not in isolation but rather, draws upon the cycles of violence in the U.S.
“Following that shooting, we are here to grieve the way that systemic racism and anti-Blackness has been the easy path for our community, speaking for white people,” Gross said.
Gross said coming together in song helps individuals to stand up for what is true and right.
“We sing as action, we sing as hope and prayer We sing for justice, healing, grief, and power,” Gross said.
For Gross and other community organizers, pushing individuals to act spurred a desire to host the event, calling on individuals to act and do the work, rather than just talk.
Yaneli Canales, volunteer with Prairieland Freedom Funds, said gathering in community, song, and resistance is a form of collective care.
“We are saying your life has value and we are saying we will fight for each other. That is what solidarity looks like,” Canales said.
Canales said collective care is an act and a choice for not only those who have been detained, but also for families experiencing feelings of isolation. Collective care is a form of resistance, she said, that depends on isolation.
“It’s choosing to show up. It’s choosing to care about someone you may never meet and it is choosing to believe that all of our futures are tied together. We choose to witness, to act, to love” Canales said.
Canales said it is important to show up for one’s community because in a time when people feel isolated and alone, building connections can be more important than sharing or likely a post.
“Collectively, if everybody can come out and do one little action, I think that will make a big impact overall,” Canales said.
Lyndsey Scott, a community organizer for Singing Resistance Iowa City, said when violence happens in a public space, such as the Ped Mall, a lack of response or the community not addressing the act, community members feel it while walking by.
“We wanted to be here and honor the pain and also assert our power to love and grieve together. As we gather together and we build trust and care, we can understand a pathway of mutual aid and collective grieving that helps us see different collaborations and different systems than the ones that are in place that are causing us harm,” Scott said.