Boston march hits Gore & Bush
Thousands say: 'Shut down the Death Debate'
By Steven
Gillis
Boston
The target was the presidential candidates' debate on Oct.
3 in Boston. For a week before the event, Boston police,
state troopers, and secret service agents put out the word in
the corporate media that no marches would be legally
permitted.
The cops complained in the Oct. 3 morning press that death
penalty protest organizers were refusing to return their
agents' calls. They threatened that "illegal attempts to
march will not stop the flow of traffic." They spoke of
herding people into "protest pens."
But Kazi Toure, a former political prisoner and leader of
the Boston Coalition for Mumia Abu-Jamal, told Workers World,
"The people don't need any permit, and we never asked for
one." As he spoke, activists pushed aside cop barricades in
front of the Dudley Square police/court complex to make way
for a sound stage to address the thousands of protesters
pouring into the square.
Cops scrambled to move their vehicles as Imani Henry of
Rainbow Flags for Mumia fired up the multinational crowd with
chants of "Money for health care and housing, not for
prisons." Henry drew cheers and raised fists from the
rush-hour crowd of workers in this hub of Boston's Black
community.
Hundreds stopped to listen to his speech connecting the
bank redlining and gentrification ravaging their neighborhood
with the struggle to stop the death penalty and to free
political prisoner Abu-Jamal.
Attiena Davis, representing Boston City Councilor Chuck
Turner's 7th District Roundtable, blasted Democratic and
Republican politicians for promoting HMOs and other
for-profit health-care schemes that have left poor
communities, especially people of color in cities and rural
areas, with plummeting coverage.
Latino community leader and former Boston School Committee
member Felix Arroyo drew cheers of understanding from the
predominantly young crowd when he attacked the forces behind
the wave of racist education testing mandates and efforts at
school privatization.
"They don't want our children to be free thinkers," Arroyo
said. "They are scared that our children will be able to
think for themselves. They want to eliminate free education,
and have us believe that public education doesn't work."
Labor activists march
Unionists who refuse to buy into the capitalist two-party
sham were represented at the demonstration. A contingent of
social workers from Service Employees Local 285--in their
fourth week on strike against their profitable, Democratic
Party-supported agency, Family Services of Greater
Boston--joined in solidarity.
Rank-and-file members of the Boston Teachers Union, who
are preparing to strike against privatization, led chants
about defending public education. State, County and Municipal
Employees union members, Steel Workers Local 8751 school bus
drivers and monitors, and National Writers Union activists
wore their colors and lent their voices.
Then, before the cops could regroup, the "March on the
Death Debates" was off to confront the sham Gore-Bush
match-up three miles away at the University of Massachusetts
in Boston. Marchers filled the streets, curb to curb, five
blocks deep.
The lead banner proclaimed, "You can't jail the spirit!"
"Stop the racist death penalty!" demanded the Boston
Coalition's banner. A militant Rainbow Flags for Mumia
contingent was led by the Lesbian Avengers, side by side with
an International Action Center banner reading: "Avenge the
murder of Shaka Sankofa! Shut down the death machine!"
"Victory to Palestine!" waved a green, black, white and
red Workers World Party banner. A two-story-tall puppet of
Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier, carried by members
of his local defense committee, filled the sky.
When chant leaders Justice Williams, Shirlynn Jones, Eve
Williams and Imani Henry called out "Death Debates," "the
Pentagon," "the death penalty," "the IMF" and "capitalism,"
the marchers roared in response, "Shut it down!"
Off the sidewalks, into the streets
The march was hugely popular with the thousands who lined
the route. They gathered on the sidewalks to applaud, raise
their fists and join the chants to the beats of Dead Prez and
a 50-strong drum squad. Many community members joined the
march, including mothers with children, youths on roller
skates, players off the basketball courts and workers who
recognized their neighbors and co-workers marching.
As the march pulsed through the Latino neighborhood of
Uphams Corner, marchers shouted, "Vieques sí! Marina
no!" and "U.S. Navy out of Vieques!" Drivers whose cars flew
Puerto Rican flags honked their approval.
"It is the same U.S. imperialism," Arroyo said over the
microphone, "which is responsible for bombing this small
fishing island, that has Mumia on death row and Puerto Rican
freedom fighters locked up in its prisons."
The roadway to UMass was lined with riot cops, but
marchers proceeded towards the site of the debate. Limousines
filled with corporate debate sponsors were sandwiched in the
crowd, along with a few hundred supporters of Bush and
Gore.
The march leaders picked up the pace as they approached
the barricaded entrance. The demand to "Shut it down!" gained
volume and urgency. Several hundred more activists joined the
march to the campus entrance.
Once there, police brutalized and arrested 16 young
people, including several students, who dared to cross the
barricades onto public university property. In the ensuing
police riot of clubs and pepper spray, the cops once again
showed the true face of "corporate democracy" to the
world.
Many anti-capitalist protestors expressed solidarity with
a demonstration of 200 Palestinians at the debate site. The
Palestinians were there to confront Gore and Bush for the
U.S. government's support of the bloody Israeli war against
the Palestinian nation.
The Palestinian demonstration was penned in by cops,
barricades and Gore-Bush supporters spewing racist insults.
Yet the Palestinians stood tall against the bigots. Members
of the Boston Coalition and Workers World Party offered sound
equipment, banners, bodies and voices to support the
Palestinian protest.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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