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Illinois Groups Campaign Against Bigotry

CAIRO โ€“ Angered by anti-Muslim rhetoric flared by politicians and presidential hopefuls, religious and social justice organizations in Evanston, Illinois, have launched a poster campaign to decry Muslim profiling and welcome refugees to their city.

โ€œWe want a visual reminder for everyone going through Evanston that Evanston is not a community that supports hate or religious bigotry,โ€ Lesley Williams, an Evanston resident, told Chicago Tribune.

Williams, who organized a previous rally held in December against hateful rhetoric, warned that Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has continued to be the source of โ€œa lot of hateful rhetoricโ€ directed toward Muslims and undocumented immigrants.

โ€œThe continual onslaught is very intimidating to a lot of people of Muslim, Middle Eastern or Latin American backgrounds and contributes to this feeling that they donโ€™t belong and are not a part of the American landscape,โ€ said Williams, a member of Jewish Voices for Peace-Chicago โ€” one of the groups that organized Sundayโ€™s event.

โ€œDonald Trump is reprehensible, but whatโ€™s more reprehensible is the millions of people following him,โ€ the Rev. Michael Nabors told the crowd of roughly 100 people at the rally in Evanstonโ€™s Fountain Square.

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Trumpโ€™s rhetoric has become a source of concern for American Muslims after a slur against African-Americans, a swastika, and a derogatory word for homosexuals were found painted inside the nondenominational Alice Millar Chapel at Northwestern University.

Lines were also spray-painted over pictures of Muslim students and the word โ€œTrumpโ€ was painted in a stairwell, the attack in which two students were charged.

โ€œThese two young men put up these racial slurs against everyone and not just one community or another,โ€ Tahera Ahmed, a chaplain at Northwestern University, said.

โ€œWe stand together for all of us, not just for one community.โ€

During a rally on Sunday, speakers applauded the March 11 cancellation of Trumpโ€™s rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion.

โ€œWe, as a city, Evanston, Chicago and the suburbs, when Donald Trump came to this town, we rose our voices and chased him away,โ€ said Renner Larson, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations Chicago.

โ€œBut he still won in the Illinois (Republican) primary.โ€

Rabbi Michael Davis of Jewish Voice for Peace agreed, vowing to continue support for minorities.

โ€œWe see this as just the beginning, a continuation of a campaign,โ€ said Rabbi Davis.

โ€œThatโ€™s the vision โ€” communities across Chicago and the U.S. will stand with Muslims and people of other faiths and take back the public square in the name of living in peace.โ€