Organizers say the event is to commemorate fallen soldiers and those forgotten.
“This is a memorial set up Sunday afternoon after the official memorial because we are looking at over million people, depending on how you count them, who are unnamed, unknown, unmemorialized, unacknowledged, forgotten about on the state official memorial,” Debrah Sweet, the director of World Can’t Wait, told Press TV.
Led by artists, activists and organizations across the country the memorial is carried out in protest against US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The protesters also voiced support for unity and solidarity against racism and anti-Muslim bigotry.
“As we remember almost 3,000 who died, we must [also] remember the tens and hundreds of thousands died because of US policy since that day (9/11). Hundreds of thousands and possibly over a million in Iraq alone, thousands died in Afghanistan, over 6,000 American troops died because of the fade and false policy,” said Joe Lambado from United National Anti War Coalition.
James Yee, the former US Army Muslim Chaplin at Guantanamo made a passionate call on Americans to speak out against the inhumane treatment of prisoners at the notorious US prison.
“Torture, this is what has gone on in Guantanamo bay and is going on when I served there, and I stand here to speak out against this unjust treatment and I urge everyone else to speak out against this unjust treatment,” Yee told protesters.
This originally appeared on Press TV on September 12, 2011.