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News :: Globalization |
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G8 protesters march in Savannah |
Current rating: 1 |
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by Rosa Goldman/Atlanta IMC |
10 Jun 2004
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Although the City of Savannah was more forthcoming with a permit than the City of Brunswick had been, the march organizers complained of barriers thrown up by all levels of government and law enforcement. Despite the barriers, about 150 people marched from Forsyth Park to the Savannah Civil Rights Museum and back for a rally in the park, a victory for civil liberties according to the organizers. |
About 150 people marched from Forsyth Park in Savannah to the Civil Rights Museum and back for a rally and festival in the park.
"It's a victory just to have this event," said local organizer Kelly Gasink. "If we didn't have a place for people to do their art, make their statements, they would just walk around and maybe break things, which doesn't accomplish anything."
Although the City of Savannah was more forthcoming with a permit than the City of Brunswick had been, the march organizers complained of barriers thrown up by all levels of government and law enforcement. For example, electricity for the rally stage was not turned on until the march was already underway.
Local concerns about whether protesters might "break things" may have discouraged some participation, but as Kelly pointed out, the fact that the march took place in the middle of a work day probably also limited its size. She anticipates more participation in the festival this evening and tomorrow evening following Bush's Thursday afternoon press conference.
The marchers and rally speakers represented a wide range of views and causes, including local liberals, Greenpeace, and members of the Libertarian and Green parties, to a group of black-clad young people from somewhere "up north" wearing handkerchiefs over their faces and marching behind a huge black banner bearing the single word "anticapitalists." A Savannah chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation served as "peacekeepers."
Members of "a Christian prayer group" handed out water and peanuts. "Prolife Anderson" (his legal name) explained he was marching against all injustice, including abortions; another antiabortion demonstrator plastered with Confederate flag stickers argued Civil War history with a recent University of Georgia graduate. Historic District homeowners watched the march from their porches through trees draped with Spanish moss.
About half the marchers were from Savannah, while others came from all over the USA and a few other countries. Local, national and international media made up another sizeable contingent.
Rally speakers railed against corporate domination of the world, the military-industrial complex, racism, and the preemptive war in Iraq. Keely Malone, invited to the stage to represent an informal contingent from Massachusetts, summed up the spirit of the protest simply: "We're not down with eight people sitting around a table setting the global agenda."
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See also:
http://atlanta.indymedia.org/feature/display/29905/index.php
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This work is in the public domain. |
