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Spirited by protest Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.s-t.com/daily/02-03/02-17-03/a01lo003.htmhttp://www.s-t.com/daily/02-03/02-17-03/a01lo003.htm
Local support spirited at N.Y. protest
By JAMES REED, Standard-Times correspondent
The last time Clovis Nelson participated in a rally, he was in his native Jamaica to protest police brutality. He joined throngs of citizens infuriated by the police's apparent murder of seven young men at a parish. The youths were suspected of being armed and were gunned down on the spot.
Within days a huge protest clogged the streets and enveloped the city. It was Mr. Nelson's first taste of political dissension, and he felt empowered.
On Saturday, Mr. Nelson was again compelled to voice his concern at a rally, only this time it was in the United States, but the reason was equally grave, he said.
"People do not want this war with Iraq," Mr. Nelson, a UMass Dartmouth graduate student, said Saturday morning on a bus en route to New York City's massive anti-war rally. "Today I expect the voices of the people will be heard and that the government will listen."
Seated around him and on two additional buses were 190 like-minded SouthCoast residents who braved bitter winds, temperatures in the teens and tight squeezes on the streets of New York to protest a possible war with Iraq.
Clues about the nature of the trip were evident even from the start. As passengers silently stepped onto the buses, still groggy and rubbing their eyes at 6 a.m., their attire spoke volumes.
"Against All Authority" read one sweatshirt in big white letters. Draped around one man's neck was a scarf embroidered with "School of Hard Knocks." In their hands, some carried signs ("No flag is large enough to hide the horrors of war"), and others toted materials to make them later on the bus.
Teresa D'Anna, 23, and her boyfriend, Ryan Wilhelmi, 21, colored their signs quietly in the back, never suspecting that hours later Mr. Wilhelmi would be handcuffed and arrested for disorderly conduct.
Two hours into the trip, though, faint conversations turned to politics. "If we manage to stop this war, it will be a watershed," someone said in the second aisle.
When the buses pulled into Shea Stadium around 11 a.m. to park for the day, wind that pierced like a knife whipped off caps and left others scrambling for their gloves as they walked toward the subway. Suddenly, the SouthCoast group began to dissipate into a larger crowd bound for the rally. In all, an estimated 500,000 people attended Saturday's protest in New York.
As they got closer to the United Nations headquarters, where the rally was intended to unfold, the roar of the crowds started to sound like television static, muddled but resolute. Police officers were seen every few feet, directing congested traffic and tautly instructing people to walk on the sidewalks.
New York City officials did not grant groups permits to march, supposedly because of the nation's high alert status, so instead, everyone stood around and chanted until they packed in as tightly as possible. A few blocks from the United Nations, guest speakers -- including South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Angela Davis and celebrities Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover -- spoke out against the Bush administration. Only those who left the crowd lost their body heat and realized it was maybe 10 degrees out.
From all sides, the eyes and ears were bombarded by ideologies. Bright signs that warned "regime change starts at home" hovered high above the crowds, and angry calls to "drop Bush, not bombs!" rang out in a thunderous call and response. Some invoked religious imagery with signs that asked, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"
The concept that these protesters are in fact the minority was raised only once, as an unsuspecting woman seemed to get caught up in the crowds on her way to a restaurant.
"These people don't want war now, but as soon as another plane flies into one of those buildings, then we'll see what they say," she said as she pointed to a nearby skyscraper and rolled her eyes.
In the thick of the masses, you could tell it was a sizable gathering, but just how big was impossible to say. Later on the bus home, without having heard any news reports, UMass student Marc Davis guessed that 10,000 people were at the rally.
If the crowd looked especially young -- and it did with plenty of folks in their early 20s -- there's a reason for that, said SouthCoast protester Peter Knowlton, who is president of United Electrical Workers, District 2.
"What's different about now versus Vietnam is the level of young opposition at such an early stage," Mr. Knowlton said. "I don't think young people see Iraq as a real threat. They have a gut feeling that what we're doing is wrong."
From the jumbo screens perched at various points, one could watch guest speakers pound the podium and rally against "more blood for oil." Singer Holly Near, stomping her foot, sang an a capella spiritual that had most of the crowd singing by the second chorus.
"I ain't afraid of your Allah/I ain't afraid of your Jesus/I'm afraid of what you do in the name of your God," she sang.
By 5:30 p.m., the SouthCoast participants were back on their buses, eager to share their experiences. Police aggression was on most people's minds.
"I thought things were bad in Jamaica, but the manners of police here today were frightening," said Mr. Nelson.
As a foreigner, Mr. Nelson said his presence at the rally sent a clear message. "This issue affects everybody. It's not an American issue; it's an international crisis."
Nick Pelletier said he was angrier than when he arrived for the rally, mainly because of what he called the police's "corralling" of the demonstrators.
"From now on I'll march in the street without a permit. I don't need anybody to tell me I'm free," he said.
Ms. D'Anna was tearful as she explained how Mr. Wilhelmi, her boyfriend, had been arrested.
"There were these three cops on horses who were pushing the crowds back, but we couldn't go anywhere because there was no room," she said. "So Ryan starting telling them to cut it out, and then an aggressive cop came over and starting punching him in the stomach."
Mr. Wilhelmi was among the 250 people arrested for disorderly conduct at the rally. He was released late Saturday night and given a summons to appear in court on March 20.
"I was really shocked by the way we were treated by the police," he said. "It just shows bad planning and intolerance on behalf of the police."
But Gloria Clark, who has been to many marches in the past several years, said she was surprised, rather, by how well the police behaved.
"They weren't wearing riot gear, which is new to me," she said. "From where I was, the police seemed pretty benign."
Evelyn Steele, a 19-year-old UMass student who studies illustration, put a local face on Saturday's rally. She was a child during the Gulf War, but as a young woman, she is worried about the United States' second round with Saddam Hussein.
She acknowledged that most of her peers are "more concerned about getting beer" than a war with Iraq, but "I try to be informed because it's the only way to live."
Ms. Steele dismissed the idea that some detractors call protesters un-American.
"Certain people want to say that we're not patriotic, but the only way to be patriotic is to know what's going on and call your leaders on it when they're wrong."
To those who would equate her views with youthful naivete, Ms. Steele has a simple response: "We're the future of this country."
This story appeared on Page A1 of The Standard-Times on February 17, 2003.
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