TALLAHASSEE, FLA.
Marchers slam Florida racism
By Tom
Doran
Tallahassee, Fla.
More than 2,000 labor and civil-rights activists chanted,
"No justice? No peace!" as they marched to the steps of the
Florida State Capitol on Jan. 20 to denounce the Jim Crow
racism of Florida officials during the recent presidential
election.
Gerald McEntee, national president of the State, County and
Municipal Employees union, vowed that President George W. Bush
and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush "will pay for this." He condemned the
anti-Black and anti-labor conduct of officials during and since
the election. AFSCME and the state AFL-CIO were primary
organizers of the event.
Speakers detailed numerous election outrages. These included
police roadblocks near the polls in African American
neighborhoods and false declarations that thousands of Black
voters were ineligible to vote because they were felons. The
Rev. Willie D. Whiting of Tallahassee was one of more than
17,000 voters who was wrongly refused ballots for this
reason.
Others told of being required to recite every item written
on their drivers license, although the law merely requires a
voter to present a photo ID and not to undergo an on-the-spot
literacy test.
Press reports and hearings by the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights almost daily reveal a new outrage. More than 200 ballots
in Nassau County disappeared between Election Day and the first
recount. More than 20,000 voter registrations made during
campaigns conducted by labor, civil rights, student and civic
organizations were never processed.
In precincts with a predominance of voters of color,
officials did not collect ballot boxes. Local election
observers had to bring in the ballots.
Speakers also condemned the brazen racism of Republican
officials after the election. Particular note was made of the
efforts of U.S. House Republican Whip Tom Delay. His staff
reportedly organized and paid roving gangs of party operatives
who joined together with right-wing Cuban exiles to create
raucous mobs outside several courthouses during the
recounts.
Some characterized the gangs as no different than a lynch
mob. One particularly overt incident was captured on national
television the day before the "Thanksgiving" holiday, when the
mob stopped a recount in Broward County.
By Bill Hackwell
San Francisco
"The one good thing about the selection of Bush to be
president by an appointed panel of judges is that it has
brought us all together here today in this spectacular
protest," exclaimed the Rev. Dorsey Blake as he opened the
counter-inaugural rally to an overflowing crowd of
demonstrators at San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza on Jan.
20.
Organized by the International Action Center, the march and
rallies here far exceeded expectations. Between 15,000 and
20,000 people converged in this opening salvo against the new
Bush administration and its right-wing agenda.
Most major news outlets reported 15,000 people attended. And
even spokespeople for the San Francisco Police Department,
notorious for under-representing progressive demonstrations,
said 10,000 to 15,000.
A wide range of people came from all over California. An
IAC-organized bus from Los Angeles brought a large contingent
of youths from the Orange County Gay Straight Alliance Youth
Drop-in Center and members of the Project 10 Safe Space for
Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans Youth of Cleveland High School in
San Fernando Valley.
Friends of the IAC in San Jose also brought a bus that was
subsidized by union donations. Car-pooling took place in
Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and in Mendocino and Contra
Costa Counties.
The first rally was in Civic Center Plaza, in the shadow of
city hall. There a number of speakers denounced Bush and the
reactionary pro-war cabinet he is assembling.
San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano welcomed the crowd. San
Francisco Central Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Walter
Johnson addressed the rally. So did Willie Ratcliff, editor of
the Bay View Newspaper--an African American newspaper in the
Bay View Hunters Point district of San Francisco. Other
speakers included Joyce Miller from the Come Into the Sun
Coalition and spoken word artist Jime Salcedo.
Cora Lee Simmons from the Round Valley Indians for Justice
told those gathered, "The first people are here to say that
this election is a shame. I'm here to stand with the African
American people of Florida whose votes were not counted. I'm
Native American and we know what it is like to not be counted.
I've been to a place called Cuba where every skin color is
treated the same."
Tahnee Stair, who had just gotten off a plane from the
fourth Iraq Sanctions Challenge of the IAC, told an approving
crowd, "We were in Iraq on the 10th anniversary of the Gulf
War. We saw first hand the effect of sanctions that have killed
1.5 million Iraqi people, half of them children. The people of
Iraq are living with the legacy of depleted uranium and 3,000
to 5,000 Iraqi children die a month.
"As George Bush Jr. takes office we must not let him and his
pro-war advisors think that they have a mandate to continue
sanctions and to start another war in Iraq."
At 1 p.m. the march stepped off from the Civic Center.
Protesters continued to pour in as the march wound its way
through the Western Addition district towards Jefferson Square
Park. It took the march 40 minutes to pass the point where
collection buckets were set up.
The front of the march was particularly militant and
visually powerful. Many banners raised issues and struggles,
including the racist disenfranchisement of the African American
vote, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, the death penalty and
U.S. intervention in Colombia, Chiapas and Cuba.
The multinational character of the march could be seen in
the wide range of contingents. Over 150 groups and
organizations endorsed the demonstration.
There were many labor unions marching under their banners,
including the Letter Carriers, Teachers, Carpenters, National
Writers Union, Postal Workers, Service Employees, and the
Plumbers, Steamfitters and Boilermakers.
Many women's organizations took part, including the National
Organization for Women.
But youths composed the largest part of the protest. Young
workers, college and high school students were there from
Berkeley, Oakland, Santa Barbara and San Jose. Youth
contingents included one from the Black Student Union of
College Park High School in Pleasant Hill. The young people
expressed their readiness to fight back against Bush.
Many people came with their young children in strollers.
IAC organizer Nancy Mitchell noted, "It was not uncommon in
the week leading up to the demonstration for our office to get
calls from people saying that they were coming and that this
was the first time they had ever demonstrated against
anything."
'Fight racism and war!'
The main rally at Jefferson Square Park included a wide
range of speakers and performers.
Ted Frazier from the NAACP explained the lawsuit that his
organizations and others have filed in Florida against the
racist election there. "We took two busloads of people from San
Francisco to Florida to protest the thousands of African
American and Haitian American votes that were silenced on Nov.
7."
Frazier added: "There are rallies and marches taking place
today all over the country. There was a coalition in the
sixties that was successful and today is the beginning of a new
coalition. We are going to have to work together and fight
together to make sure that justice and fairness rule in this
nation."
Other speakers included Renee Salcedo, director of Centro
Legal de la Raza; San Francisco Supervisor Sophie Maxwell;
Carlos Padilla, Students for Justice in San Jose; Debra Glenn
Rogers, chair of the Reproductive Rights Task Force of NOW;
Nancy Charraga, San Francisco Zapatista Support Committee;
Pierre Laboissiere, Bay Area Haitian American Council; Jackie
Santos, Vieques Support Committee; and Kim Yee from the Asian
Left Network.
Gloria La Riva, speaking for Workers World Party, said, "I'm
proud to say that my name, along with Monica Moorehead's name,
was on that butterfly ballot in Florida. No one should think
that the 40 million people in this country who didn't vote
would've gone for Bush or Gore. That is why we began organizing
this demonstration back in September--because we knew that it
didn't matter who was elected. The struggle would be the same
and the main priority would still be the struggle to free Mumia
and to end the racist death penalty."
Elias Rashmawi of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee said, "We are here to be with you to build the bridge
of social justice with all people. As Palestinians we know only
too well what it means to have democracy stolen and to be
exiled, like Leonard Peltier and Mumia are, in our own
homeland."
Alicia Jrapko of the IAC's U.S. Out of Colombia Committee
talked about Plan Colombia and the $1.3 billion the U.S.
recently gave the Colombian government to escalate the war
against liberation forces there. "The danger of a full scale
U.S. war in Colombia is imminent," she stressed.
"I have a 17-year-old son and I'm sure that many of you have
children that age too. We have to tell Bush we will not allow
our youths to go off to fight another Vietnam War in Latin
America to defend imperialist interests. The people of Colombia
are not our enemies," she said.
Performers at the rally included the Freedom Song Network
and spoken word artists Company of Prophets. Indigenous
musicians from Latin America performed with Native American
actor/singer and activist Floyd Westerman.
Westerman told the crowd, "As American Indians we have
always said that America has been bankrupt for leaders. That
the American leadership has the collective mental age of a
13-year-old and Bush Jr. is a perfect example. Because they
don't know how to treat the environment. If the leadership had
followed Indian ways we would not have this environmental
situation we are in now."
Westerman said Clinton could have done the right thing by
pardoning Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier but he
didn't have the strength to do it.
Co-chairs of the rallies were John Parker of the Los Angeles
IAC, the Rev. Dorsey Blake of the Church of Fellowship of All
Peoples, Chicano activist and KPFA radio personality Miguel
"Gavilan" Molina and Richard Becker, West Coast coordinator of
the IAC.
Becker summed up the activities: "We are here today to just
say no--right from the start. Gov. Death has gone to Washington
and along with him comes a cabinet filled with lovers of the
Confederacy, a team that wants to roll back workers' rights,
voting rights, women's rights, lesbian and gay rights, disabled
rights, immigrants' rights. In other words, the rights of the
people.
"But we say: We won't go back, send Bush back!"
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page