Thousands Join New York Parade to Celebrate World Falun Dafa Day, Reject Communism

NEW YORK—Thousands of people in blue and yellow jackets popped up in the heart of the Big Apple for a parade on May 10 just after a misty rain.

It’s an annual tradition. Fairies holding lotus flowers, a float ferrying people in ancient Chinese attire, a Western-style marching band, and Chinese waist drummers. They marched through the streets of Manhattan for about 1.5 hours, in step with sounds and melodies that drew inspiration from a China long ago.

The New York parade marks one of the largest of its kind in the world to commemorate World Falun Dafa Day, with an estimated 5,000 people taking part this year. It also marks the anniversary of the spiritual discipline’s introduction to the public 32 years ago.

It’s a day that mixes joy and sorrow.

The practice drew an estimated 70 million to 100 million people to it in China in the 1990s; it centered around meditative exercises and the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. In China, Falun Gong has been severely persecuted at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999.

During the nearly 25 years of brutal persecution, an untold number of Falun Gong practitioners have been killed through torture, slave labor, and forced organ harvesting. Survivors in China—and those who practice in more than 100 countries around the world—say the communist persecution can’t make them bend their will.