AGAINST FORGETTING
George W. Bush’s inauguration went less smoothly than the GOP would have liked, as thousands of activists filled the streets of Washington to protest Bush’s disputed election “victory.”
NAACP
chapters from as far away as Detroit dispatched busloads of activists for a demonstration that surrounded the Supreme Court building. Protests organized by the
National Organization for Women
, the
National Action Network
and other groups made dissent the order of the day, though a huge police presence blocked several marches and prevented the use of giant puppets and other tools of post-Seattle protest. The
Kensington Welfare Rights Union
built a tent city, “Bushville USA,” on the lawn of the Health and Human Services Department, only to see it dismantled within minutes and its 200 occupants removed by security officials.
Alexis Baden-Meyer
, an organizer of the DC-based
Arts in Action Working Group
, said police restrictions violated freedom of expression. But the protests were still heard–and seen. The most high-profile challenge came along the inaugural parade route, where protesters took over bleachers reserved for Bush supporters and jeered “Jail to the Thief” as the Bush motorcade raced by…. Dozens of protests occurred elsewhere on January 20; NAACP president
Kweisi Mfume
told 1,000 people at an electoral reform rally in Tallahassee, “While the eyes of the nation are on Washington and on this inauguration, we’ve come back to Florida to say that we remember and we must not ever forget.”
TAKING BACK DEMOCRACY
On the day before the inaugural, voting rights activists from across the country gathered in Washington to plot a legislative and political crusade to reform the political system. “The Bush people, the Republicans, the Supreme Court–they do not yet fully understand the mistake they made when they decided to steal the election,” declared Representative
Cynthia McKinney
of Georgia. Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Senator
Paul Wellstone
and Representatives
Dennis Kucinich
,
Bernie Sanders
,
Jan Schakowsky
,
Barbara Lee
,
Eleanor Holmes Norton
and McKinney, joined academics and activists for seminars, workshops and discussions organized by the
Institute for Policy Studies
, the
Progressive Challenge
network, the
Nation Institute
and the
Center for Voting and Democracy
. The forum was the first of several planned to link grassroots activists with members of the 107th Congress who are pushing reform legislation on issues ranging from the healthcare crisis to the wealth gap. McKinney said the Florida election dispute and anticipated fights over Congressional redistricting created a rare opening for reform. “In 1965, civil rights activism that seemed undoable suddenly became doable after Bloody Sunday,” she said. “After Florida 2000, voting reforms that seemed undoable suddenly seem doable. Voting rights is an issue–not just a civil rights issue, but an American issue.”
NOT A FAVORITE SON
The grilling of Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft by Senators Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings benefited substantially from information provided by one of the nation’s most ambitious grassroots organizations,
Missouri Pro-Vote
, a coalition of labor, pro-choice, gay and lesbian, and community activist groups. Soon after Ashcroft’s nomination was announced, Pro-Vote officials began working with
Pacifica’s
Democracy Now!
radio program, the
Institute for Public Accuracy
and
USAction
–the national network of state-based progressive groups with which Pro-Vote is affiliated–to spread the word about Ashcroft’s extremist views and his record of racial insensitivity. Much of the information had been gathered as part of a five-year monitoring project of the Pro-Vote-linked
Missouri Citizen Education Fund
. Pro-Vote’s work to expand African-American voter registration in St. Louis last year–when Ashcroft was narrowly defeated for re-election to the Senate–was honored by the
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
as part of that city’s
Martin Luther King Day
festivities.
MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRIC
“You can’t always get what you want,” crooned activist-musician
Doug Hartnett
, as his band the
Oxymorons
ripped into the Rolling Stones classic and a set of equally appropriate tunes for dissenters on the first night of the George W. Bush Administration. Rocking a crowd of more than 800 at the
Americans for Democratic Action
Counter-Inaugural Gala, Hartnett, who works by day as a lawyer for the whistleblowing
Government Accountability Project
, and the Oxymorons had no trouble filling the dance floor at Washington’s Mayflower hotel with a multigenerational crowd that answered the call to “party liberally.” Grand Old Partyers arriving to celebrate in another wing of the hotel did double takes when they encountered revelers like Baltimore’s Sarah McClintock, whose green brocade gown was accented with gold glitter slogans that read, “Reject the Republicans” and “Jail to the Thief.” “I wanted to make a fashion statement that no one would misinterpret,” announced a grinning McClintock.
John Nichols’s e-mail is [email protected].
