Grand Prairie, TX – Members of the DFW Anti-War Committee on did a banner drop March 1 in front of the local Lockheed Martin Fire and Missile Control Center to protest against Lockheed’s annual coding competition, Code Quest.

Jo Hargis with the DFW Anti-War Committee said, “This action was part of our campaign against weapons manufacturers within the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. One aspect of this campaign is tackling the influence of weapons manufacturers on students. At previous actions we have protested job fairs where weapons manufacturers were tabling and handed out flyers to educate students on the military industrial complex at campuses such as the University of Texas at Arlington.”

Another member of the DFW Anti-War Committee, Josh Rudd, said, “Weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin have contributed to U.S. imperialism around the world, particularly in the genocide on Palestine. The goal of students should be to gain an education, and companies that play a role in contributing to genocide should have no part in our education system.”

Attendees chanted slogans such as “Lockheed Martin you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide” and “We know what your factory’s for, occupation, endless war.”

According to Lockheed Martin’s website, “Each year, Lockheed Martin hosts Code Quest, an annual computer programming competition where teams of two to three high school students work together to solve problems by using Java, Python, C#, and/or C++ programming to complete the ‘quest’. The problem set consists of 20 to 30 challenging problems created by Lockheed Martin engineers and computer programmers.” Aside from Grand Prairie, Texas, competitions were in a total of 19 cities, including Denver and Orlando.

#GrandPrarieTX #TX #AntiWarMovement #WeaponsIndustry #DFWAWC #LockheedMartin