Worcester Sends Protesters to Washington
WASHINTON, Sept. 24 – “Being an organizer is a very nervous job,” said Alex Broner, the senior geography major responsible for getting three vans full of his Clark University compatriots down to Washington, D.C., for Saturday’s peace march. He was still grappling with van rentals and nailing down participants only a few days before it was time to leave, and he said there was still a chance it would all fall apart. “Once we get there and people are tear-gassing us I’ll be so relaxed,” he said.
But half-past midnight on Friday the little band of Worcester-area students and older community members (brought along partly for their driving prowess) finally rolled out of town, bound for the nation’s capitol and equipped with signs, food, and very loud music to keep the drivers from falling asleep at the wheel.
Gray Harrison, who drove a van down fortified by Java Hut coffee, is a math and science teacher at a school he recently founded outside Worcester. “I got involved in the late ’60’s when I thought they might send me to Vietnam,” Mr. Harrison said. He said that the Iraq War was like Vietnam, because both were “for imperialism, and not to keep our country safe.”
He has protested in New York and Washington, and participated in weekly vigils put on by Worcester Peaceworks, where he said the supportive-beep to middle finger ratio has improved since the war began. His wife and daughter saved the $50-per-person cost of the trip by joining 30-40 protesters in Worcester’s Lincoln Square.
They were coming down for the annual protest organized the groups International A.N.S.W.E.R. and United for Peace and Justice. The Clark University group was among the large numbers from across the country that descended on Washington to express their opposition to the war in Iraq, not to mention globalization, racism and other issues.
A few minutes after 10 a.m. the group settled itself beneath a tree on a lawn between the Washington Monument and the White House, known as the Ellipse. People were arriving, but far fewer than the organizers’ projected 100,000.
A sound system blasted the news that Amtrak trains running south to Washington had been suspended due to an electrical problem. It was hinted broadly that this was a little too convenient to be a coincidence, but that would-be protesters in New York had overcome the attempt at sabotage by demonstrating spontaneously at Penn Station. “Fight the system. The electrical system,” joked Mr. Broner.
The group sat in a circle, some lying down, others chatting or reading newspapers. Ksenia Varlyguina, who was born in Moscow but raised in Worcester, said she was mainly interested in protesting the IMF and the World Bank. She said they “help us, but don’t really help the people they’re supposed to with their policies.” She was considering staying for Monday’s lobbying day against those institutions.
Ben Kilpatrick held a sign that said “End the war against the poor in Iraq and New Orleans.” He wore a University of New Orleans sweatshirt. Mr. Kilpatrick’s family got out of that city a day and a half before Hurricane Katrina hit, and he’s staying in Worcester for the time being, studying at Clark.
Clark biology and economics major Sarah Assefa grew up in Kenya and said she wants to go back there and work in economic development with the environment in mind. She disagrees with what she calls the “misallocation of resources” that the Iraq war represents, toward war and away from education and humanitarian programs.
“The war in Iraq is totally inappropriate,” she said. “If we want security there are other ways to go about it.”
By the time the speakers began, the crowd had grown. The Worcester protesters split up, some starting on a long march to the Dupont Circle neighborhood while others relocated to a space in the back of the crowd, next to three women and a man from western Massachusetts who call themselves the Matriots. The group began a year ago as a way of “putting the party back in party,” as member Marybeth Home of Northampton put it. The Matriots (as opposed to patriots) have declared themselves a political party, and even had their first “unconventional convention” last Mother’s Day.
Explains Ms. Home, the group aims to “bring feminine balance to a male dominated world,” which she and her friends do wearing foot-tall wigs and fake fur-covered glasses.
Speakers at the rally included the Rev. Jesse Jackson and mom-turned-protester Cindy Sheehan. Afterwards, the protestors marched past the Department of the Treasury and the White House, chanting, “Iraqis die by the hour? What do we do? Fight the power.” A man pushed his wheelchair which held a sign which read: “World War Two veteran for peace.”
The march was peaceful, with police watchful but relaxed along the route. Police officials estimated that the protesters reached their 100,000 goal, while organizers said that they far surpassed it. A separate protest was scheduled Sunday for supporters of the war in Iraq.
As to whether the protest will have an effect on policy, long-time protester Carol Esler of Hopkinton said her views on that had changed over the years.
As a Vietnam protester in college she said, “There was a sense [with each protest] that ‘this time we’re going to do it.’” She said she believed that the demonstrations would change people’s views in a lasting way.
Now, although Ms. Esler still thinks protest is effective, she said, “I know that we’re going to have to keep doing this.”
