Press

Stanzas in Solidarity: Northwest Arkansas poet rallies community, raising more than $50k to support families in Gaza

By Catherine Nolte, with additional reporting by Charitha Katupitiya

“I have Jewish ancestry, and I’m very angry about people profiling us as antisemitic,” Sloan said. “I think that’s a total ruse to play, to pull that kind of card on people concerned about using our tax dollars to murder women and children.”

Gerry Sloan stands with other protesters outside the Washington County Courthouse, demanding the United States government stop sending his tax dollars to fund the Israeli military.

“I’m disgusted by our legislators at the state level and at the federal level for their complicity because many of them are shareholders in these industries that produce weapons,” said Gerry Sloan, a donor to Fayetteville Feeds Families and former professor at the University of Arkansas who spoke at a poetry reading fundraiser. “Every time we drop a bomb on Gaza, their stock portfolio swells. That makes me very angry. They have no incentive to stop dropping bombs.”