Abounding Prosperity hosts rally for Muhlaysia Booker

The Rev. Carmarion Anderson served as emcee for a rally supporting Muhlaysia Booker at Abounding Prosperity on Saturday, April 20. Booker, who was attacked following a minor car accident in the parking lot at her apartment complex, attended the rally.

Anderson opened by telling the crowd, “We’re grateful this isn’t a memorial service.”

While hate crime charges are still pending against the attacker who was paid $200 to assault Booker, Anderson said the only possible motivation for this crime was hate.

Abounding Prosperity CEO Kirk Myers thanked Dallas police for their support, more than a dozen of whom were on hand for the rally. But he admonished the black press for not covering the story.

Dallas Police Major J.E. Page represented Police Chief U. Renee Hall at the rally.

“I read about assaults everyday,” she said. “It was most shocking that people stood around and did nothing. The community needs to step up.”

Page said instead of helping, the crowd was cheering the attacker on and took video that they posted to social media, rather than calling the police. “To the transgender community,” she said, “We support you all.”

Mieko Hicks, a host of Transfusion Radio, said black leaders call LGBT “the weakness of the black community” and an “agenda of the white community to destroy the black community.” She said that if all black lives don’t matter, then none do.

To the police officers at the rally, Hicks said she grew up terrified of the police, adding that, “It does my heart good to see so many here.”

State Rep. Jessica Gonzalez offered her support to the transgender community at the rally, while acknowledging that the LGB community hasn’t always been there for the trans community. “Safety is non-negotiable,” she said, adding that the Legislature’s new “LGBT Caucus won’t stand for hate against the transgender community.”

Muhlaysia Booker made her first public appearance since the attack. She only said a few words before being overcome with emotion from the support. “This time it was me,” she said. “Next time it could be you.”

When she found it hard to speak anymore, the crowd began chanting, “We love you Muhlaysia.”

Nicole O’Hara Munro presented Myers a check for $4,030 that she had raised as seed money for Nicole’s House. Booker is the new transgender safe house’s first resident.

As she presented the check, Munro said she was thrown out of her house as a teenager and would have benefited from such a transitional home.

According to AP Chief Operating Officer Tamara Stephney, they were able to get the house open and running in no time, because the building had already been acquired with plans to use it for another program. After the assault, they quickly converted it into the Nicole’s House residence.

Nicole’s House has five bedrooms. Another trans woman who lived in the same complex as Booker also moved to the facility last week for her own protection.

As he accepted the check, Myers said that in addition to the two residents of Nicole’s House, he received a call from a trans woman who told him she had been harassed on the job because of what happened to Booker.

Because it was created quickly, Nicole’s House has a vast number items it will need. Stephney said she would begin compiling a list of those items she’d ask the community to donate. But, she said, the two residents moved from their apartments into the house with their own belongings, so there was no immediate problem.

— David Taffet