The speaking portion will include reflections from survivors and affected family members, as well as community and interfaith leaders and elected officials. Confirmed speakers include Oak Creek Mayor Dan Bukiewicz and Lt. Brian Murphy, the now-retired police officer who responded to the shooting. The full program for the evening will be unveiled in the weeks ahead.
Additional community-focused events that will be held throughout the weekend under the broad theme of
Heal, Unite, Act include the Akhand Path beginning on Friday, a community gathering focused on youth empowerment on Saturday, and kirtan and langar on Sunday. All commemorative services around the 10 year anniversary are being led by the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, with additional programming, marketing, and community engagement support from the Sikh Coalition, Sikh American Legal Defense & Education Fund (SALDEF), and the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee. This direct support is for the explicit purposes of centering the Oak Creek Sikh community.
The Sikh Coalition and SALDEF are both also building out additional programming--including concrete policy asks that community members across the country can take action on--to ensure that sangats nationwide can commemorate Oak Creek and recognize the resilience of our community in the decade since, and we will continue to provide further updates as we get closer to August.
