Highlights from January 20 Inauguration Protests in DC
The Refuse & Resist! Youth Network joined many thousands in protests of the inauguration of president Bush in DC January 20.
Protesters were warned away by police ahead of time with stories of check point entrances to demonstration areas and recommendations to stay in small groups to avoid arrest for protesting without a permit.
But, along the parade route, a block of bleechers left vacant in the cold drizzle was taken over by protesters who appeared to greatly outnumber other parade-goers throughout the day. As the President's car drove by, it was pelted with fruit while the crowd booed and chanted "Not my President!"
The blatant religious fascism of Bush and his entourage was creatively exposed and parodied by groups like "Students for an Undemocratic Society" and "Millionaires for Bush and Gore."
At the International Action Center site, a member of the R&R! Youth Network read a message to the crowd from Clark Kissinger, still in jail in New York for his unrepentant stand in support of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. And Mumia, himself, joined and inspired thousands in opposition to this hideous celebration of the politics of cruelty by way of his tape-recorded words. The faces of Shaka Sankofa (recently executed by the State) and Mumia were present along with the determination of more than one generation and many political views uniting in protest.
This was a day of protest in which people found allies among strangers. A Black Block group surrounded by police at the NOW (National Organization for Women) demonstration site was released by the vociferous arrival of thousands of merging protesters from very different marches. At another site, four protesters climbed onto a building, replaced government flags with Anarchist flags and the red, Communist, flag and then managed to leave the scene by literally jumping over the heads of police into the arms of a large and welcoming crowd.
Al Sharpton rallied disenfranchised African-American voters against a president known for executing the innocent, and NOW rallied women facing unapologetic plans by the new administration to take away what's left of a woman's control over her own body. At a voters protest beginning at DuPont Circle, a couple thousand gathered in protest of a stolen election and marched to the Ellipse chanting "Oh no, Gore's ahead, better call my brother Jeb", "We're wet, we're cold. Democracy's been sold", and "Jail to the Thief."
From girl scouts and boy scouts in yellow ponchos at "check points" to uniformed police systematically photographing every protester along the way, to cordons of police in riot gear cornering and attacking, the cops were out in force to keep the lid down on dissent.
And from groups of voters jay-walking in protest of a stolen election, to the security-serious military march of the new Black Panthers, to the audacity of flag-pole-climbing youth, diverse streams of dissent mingled into a new concoction potent enough to make sure the next four years will really be OUR four years.
[posted 1/25/01]
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