NEWS / What happened in New York By Jean Dickson
My friend Kelly (a union colleague) and I met my son and his fiance at Grand Central Station at 11:45 Saturday morning, then attempted to find another friend from Massachusetts on 55th Street and 2nd Ave., but failed. By then the police were putting up barriers along all the side streets leading toward the peace rally. Officers told us to walk another block or two north, then we could turn right and attend the rally, but at each successive block there were more barriers and more police ¨C usually only 5 or 7 cops at each intersection, not enough to stop the crowds if we had been rowdy. People were generally very peaceful and cooperative, though, so we kept walking.
Like other demonstrators, I was impressed with the variety and creativity of the home?made signs. "Draft Jenna" and "SUVs: Axles of Evil" and "Empty warheads found in the White House" (with the Nation magazine's cartoon of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, as empty jars), as well as "War begins with Dubya", "We love you, France", "One world, one love", (with a reproduction of the earth as seen from space), and many others. We carried a banner that said "War sucks" and "Buck Fush". Kelly explained to all and sundry that this came from a fictional group called Dyslexics against the war. In fact, there were many interesting groups to be seen, including unions and ethnic organizations such as Filipinos for Peace.
Although we weren't supposed to be marching (no permit had been granted), the police had essentially forced us to march. So we chanted and sang and marched with the others, photographed their signs, and talked. There were enough people to take over the streets ¨C the sidewalks were too full. So the police effort was counter-productive in several respects. No one could drive safely and freely on Second or Third Avenues, and vehicles couldnĄŻt use the cross streets either, once the police has set up their barriers. Policemen and women allowed people with ID proving their residency into the blocks that were blockaded. They allowed nonresidents to leave the rally area, but not to enter it.
Eventually our little group arrived on First Ave., but we were so far from the actual rally, could hear so little even with the loudspeakers on the next block, and felt so penned in with police barriers and mounted police on the sidewalks and inside the barriers, that we were more uncomfortable than before. We did hear Pete Seeger singing "Somewhere over the rainbow" and Al Sharpton decrying the politics of the warmongers.
I'm not sure exactly where we were when we saw the mounted police charging a small group of demonstrators on the sidewalk. I don't know what the police were upset about, but they chased several young people northward on the sidewalk, toward our position. There were three or four , high-stepping in what I think was a fast trot, and the demonstrators were running for their lives. At least one was chased into an area around the corner, by a hotel entrance, where he was knocked down and captured by police. He looked terrified. A young woman, apparently his friend, was crying, and other friends were identifying him as Mike something to a camera-wielding reporter. The same young man was then paraded back through the crowd, apparently under arrest.
We decided to get out of the pen and walk south toward the rally again. My son's girlfriend jokingly asked one of the cops to stamp her hand so that she could come back to the pen later. It was too cold to stand still for long, anyway. On Third Ave. we saw a man jump out of his red car and push an anti?war demonstrator out of the way. Police prevented further violence, but didn't arrest him. Some demonstrators chanted "Whose street? Our street!" while others talked about constitutional rights: freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. We heard one policewoman saying to her colleagues that she expected there would be some goddamn lawsuits out of this mess.
Toward 3 PM we tried to find a bathroom, finally finding one in the big Barnes and Noble store. The place was packed with demonstrators, many just sitting on the floor resting. The staff was very kind and didn't even expect people to buy anything. Many other businesses had closed their bathrooms to the public, no matter whether you bought coffee there or not. We waited at least 20 minutes to get into the bathroom. Kelly thanked the security guard at the door for their courtesy and promised to patronize the business in the future. We too were exhausted from several hours of walking in the cold, so my son and his fiance headed back to their car, and Kelly and I tried to catch the shuttle at Grand Central, but police barred us (and many others) from entering the subway. So at about 4:30 we climbed on a bus and rode to our friend's place on the upper west side, in a trip that ordinarily would have taken about 10 minutes, but on Saturday took over an hour.
The whole experience was exhilarating, although the police behavior was both puzzling and frightening. There were lots of people of all descriptions, including families with strollers and dogs, all crying out for peace and cooperation among nations. One of my friends here in Buffalo, after hearing my account of the police behavior, said that I shouldn't have gone and exposed myself and others to danger. I told him that it is our duty as citizens to speak up and protest. All that is required for evil to triumph, as the saying goes, is for good people to be silent and do nothing.
- Jean Dickson is a librarian who stands with Women in Black in Buffalo.
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Last updated April 24, 2003