Why I Must March

With Cindy Sheehan and a few hundred supporters camped out in the backyard of BushCo's vacation home and a mass anti-war mobilization scheduled for September 24th in D.C. (and LA, San Francisco and Seattle), protest is in on people's minds.  So it's not surprising that if you bop around blogtopia for a while - especially the comment threads of the big blogs - you'll be able to piece together a discussion of the value of anti-war protests.  Among the crowd that doesn't support them, and it's substantial, the opinions can be divided into two camps:  At best, they're goofy, fractured, off-message wastes of time and at worst they are the reason that the mythical centrist American voter won't vote for Democrats, supplanting for at least a few minutes, the single-issue villians of the pro-choice movement.   

I've been struggling to put together a grand unified theory of protest politics for a while.  It's a struggle because while I support peaceful protests of all shapes and sizes,  I understand the frustration people have with anyone who distracts from what they consider to be the Big Idea.  I also understand, but disagree with, the argument that the message is weakened by  protesters who confuse some Americans by not looking exactly like those Americans.  I admit frustration with the "anarchists" whose affinity for violence not only doesn't fit into my definition of peaceful, but is also way too easy an image to hang on the non-violent protest efforts. But, at the end of the day, I would rather have to deal with all of those weaknesses inherent in protest politics than voluntarily give up my right to assemble and air grievances.  And today, Women's Equality Day, is a good reminder why.

The women's suffrage movement was in place for over seventy years when the 19th Amedment finally gave me the right to vote as a US citizen and a woman.  Although the amendment passed in 1920, women had the right to vote in twelve western states by 1917.  It was in one of those western states that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns formed the National Women's Party.  Here's what that party did for my mother, my daughter and for me:

The NWP staged more demonstrations, parades, mass meetings, picketing,           suffrage watch fires, hunger strikes, press communications, and lobbying. It published a stylish Suffragist weekly paper, organizing  women in the west who could vote. Their tactic was to hold the party  in power (the Democrats) responsible for failure to pass the amendment   -- and they urged women who could to vote against Democrats.   NAWSA   leaders condemned the policy, saying pro-suffrage politicians were  in both parties.   Suffragists released from prison, in prison uniforms,  rode a "Prison Special" train, speaking throughout the country.  Other women held automobile petition drives across the country.

Beginning January 10, 1917, the NWP began picketing the White House -- the             first group in the U.S. to wage a nonviolent civil disobedience campaign.             They became known as the Silent Sentinels, standing silently by the gates, carrying purple, white and gold banners saying "Mr. President, what will you do for suffrage?" and "Mr. President, how  long must women wait for liberty?" The first day, 12 NWP members marched in a slow, square movement so passers-by could see the banners.   Over the next 18 months, more than 1,000 women picketed, including  Alice, day and night, winter and summer, every day except Sunday.        

At firs they were politely ignored, but then World War I began on April 6 and the picketers' signs became more pointed -- often using the president's quotes against him. One banner read: "Democracy Should Begin at Home." They asked, how could he fight to help disenfranchised  people when he had disenfranchised people at home? They became an embarassment.

Spectators began assaulting the women verbally and physically -- while the police did nothing to protect them. Then in June, the police began arresting the picketers on charges of "obstructing traffic." First the charges were dropped, then the women were sentenced to a few days' jail terms. But the suffragists kept picketing, and the jail terms grew longer. Finally, to try to break their spirit, the police arrested Alice on October 20, 1917, and she was sentenced to seven months in prison. The banner she carried that day said:

"THE TIME HAS COME TO CONQUER OR SUBMIT, FOR US THERE CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE. WE HAVE MADE IT." (President Wilson's words)

Inspiring political strategizing and committed grassroots dedictation for sure.  But four years earlier, despite a loyal and active following and progress made at the state level, the national movement for universal sufferage was languishing. Alice Paul, patriot, returned from England with a Big Idea:

In November 1912, as suffrage leaders were casting about for new means to ensure their victory, Alice Paul arrived at the NAWSA annual convention in Philadelphia.  A 28-year-old Quaker from New Jersey, she had recently returned to the United States fresh from helping the militant branch of the British suffrage movement.  She had been arrested repeatedly, been imprisoned, gone on a hunger strike and been forcibly fed. Paul was full of ideas for the American movement.  She asked to be allowed to organize a suffrage parade to be held in Washington at the time of the president's inauguration, thus ensuring maximum press attention.  She also promised to raise the necessary funds.  NAWSA happily accepted her offer and gave her the title Chairman of the Congressional Committee. In December 1912, she moved to Washington, where she discovered that the committee she chaired had no headquarters and most of the members had died or moved away.

Undaunted, Alice Paul convened the first meeting of her new committee on Jan. 2, 1913, in the newly rented basement headquarters at 1420 F Street N.W.  She started raising funds.  According to one friend, "it was very difficult to refuse Alice Paul."  She and the others she recruited worked nonstop for two months. By March 3 this fledgling committee had organized and found the money for a major suffrage parade with floats, banners, speakers and a 20-page official program. The total cost of the event was $14,906.08, a princely sum in 1913, when the average annual wage was $621. The programs and tableau each cost over $1,000.

Suffrage groups across the nation contributed to the success of the procession.  From its New York headquarters, NAWSA urged suffrage supporters to gather in Washington:

 

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WHY YOU MUST MARCH

Because this is the most conspicuous and important demonstration that has ever been attempted by suffragists in this country.  

Because this parade will be taken to indicate the importance of the suffrage movement by the press of the country and the thousands of spectators from all over the United States gathered in Washington for the Inauguration.

As the Woman's Journal put it, "the parade struggled to victory despite some disgraceful scenes" on the part of spectators who disagreed with the proposition that women were created equal to men and so deserved the blessings of liberty guaranteed in the Constitution.  Participants, male and female, were mocked.  When the jeers proved useless, spectators turned to physical violence.  Hundreds of marchers ended up at local emergency rooms.  But the parade staged to ensure my right to vote as an American continued.

Images and accounts from the day make it clear that the demonstration was not without a sense of drama.

Upon reaching the Treasury Building, a hundred women and children from the procession presented an allegorical tableau written especially for the occasion to show "those ideals toward which both men and women have been struggling through the ages and toward which, in co-operation and equality, they will continue to strive." The pageant began with "The Star Spangled Banner" and the commanding figure of Columbia dressed in national colors, emerging from the great columns at the top of the Treasury Building steps. Charity entered, her path strewn with rose petals; Liberty followed to the "Triumphal March" from Aida, and a dove of peace was released. In the final tableau, Columbia, surrounded by Justice, Charity, Liberty, Peace and Hope, all in flowing robes and colorful scarves, with trumpets sounding, stood to watch the oncoming procession.

No puppets, but still that's some show.  And, since publicity was something the parade's organizers craved instead of feared, the drama and stagecraft started a month before the parade stepped off:

On Feb. 12, with cameras clicking, 16 "suffrage pilgrims" left New York City to walk to Washington for the parade. Many other people joined the original hikers at various stages, and the New York State Woman Suffrage Association's journal crowed that "no propaganda work undertaken by the State Association and Party has ever achieved such publicity." One of the New York group, Elizabeth Freeman, dressed as a gypsy and drove a yellow, horse-drawn wagon decorated with Votes for Women symbols and filled with pro-suffrage literature, a sure way to attract publicity.

Faux-gypsies, pilgrims, pageants, Liberty entering on rose pedals.  That's passion.  That's a sense of the moment.  Those are images that endure.  Not to mention also part of a political strategy that  resulted in the enfranchisement of half the population.   I could no more turn my back on that proud tradition of political action than I could stay home on Election Day. 

And so I will proudly march in D.C. on September 24th to stand with Cindy Sheehan and thousands like her and to expose the growing tide of public disapproval for an illegal war of choice sold to America with lies and being paid for with the blood of American soldiers and Iraqis alike as well as with the misery of the families they leave behind.  I believe, as Alice Paul did almost a hundred years ago about her parade, that this  march will be taken to indicate the importance of the peace movement by the press of the country and the thousands of spectators from all over the United States.  And if the young man next to me has green hair and a t-shirt that says "Buck Fush," and if the woman behind me is carrying a sign that says "Free Mummia,"  and the group behind her wants to free Haitians from their current torment and a future of corporate slavery, then I'll say "Welcome, brothers and sisters.  Let me shake your hand and thank you for marching today.  Maybe now  is the time that we change the course of history together and in peace."

Most of the information about the Inauguration Day Parade for Women's Suffrage came from this site.

UPDATE: I put quotes around the term "anarchists" to indicate that I don't know much about the anarchist movement and have to take the world of people who use that label to describe themselves.

Comments

[albert]

Lady and I are planning on heading down. So is Josh from skaroff.com/blog. We should get a huge crew down there marching together from the area.

[eRobin]

Riggs from It's My Country Too is going too. Marching together is a great idea.

[Chris Clarke]

Minor nit: just because Black Bloc nihilists call themselves "anarchists" doesn't mean that that's what they are. Some of the anarchists in the crowd, myself included, think they're silly kids playing dangerous testosterone games.

[eRobin]

Chris: Sorry. What I don't know about the anarchist movement and it's various splinter groups runs deep and wide. My mistake is a good example of what the people opposed to marching are afraid will happen to their message when the corporate media lets photos of the more fringe elements of the crowd represent the movement. I'm hoping that blogs and other alternative media, as well as an energized base that works to overturn that impression, will stem the tide of misinformation at least a little bit. It worked here ;)

[Chris Clarke]

Oh, no apology necessary. You're absolutely right, and I was just kvetching over common semantics.

I figure if someone as combative as Chomsky is reluctant to call himself an anarchist because of just that misunderstanding, then it's really past time for us to get a different PR guy.

[Riggsveda]

Yes, yes, and yes! You are so good! This is exactly what it's supposed to be about. We have become so cursed with hive mentality that even the so-called "free thinkers" of the liberal end of the spectrum are always looking over their shoulders to see if anyone thinks they're pushing the envelope a little too far. The people who were finally able to influence change weren't the timid ones who worried about how the PR was going... they were the ones who held a vision in their minds, who were pushed almost against their will by their conscience to stand by that vision and make it known to the rest of the world, and suffer whatever humiliations and oppositions they encountered because of it, not because they believed they were holier-than-thou, but because they loved that vision and believed it was right, and they simply couldn't do anything other than stand by it. This is what the reactionaries mean when they say Democrats/liberals have no values---because they see many of the people who espouse our vision forever testing the waters and making sure they aren't leaping the fence of acceptable behavior and ideas. Do you think Nelson Mandela would have made any impact if he was worried about how his ideas were playing in the depths of racist hearts or whether too many "weirdos" were hitching their wagons to his train? He knew what mattered, and he never lost that vision.

This is what we must do.

---Riggsveda, from an alien computer

[DavidByron]

"I've been struggling to put together a grand unified theory of protest politics for a while"

And...?
One of the themes I'm seeing in what you said is the contrast of party political power with the power of changing attitudes.

[eRobin]

And ...

And I've been failing.

You're right about the party vs. popluar action when it comes to changing attitudes. The corporate parties are interested only in the status quo. And this part was interesting wasn't it:

Their tactic was to hold the party in power (the Democrats) responsible for failure to pass the amendment -- and they urged women who could to vote against Democrats. NAWSA leaders condemned the policy, saying pro-suffrage politicians were in both parties.

especially in light of NARAL and the RI Senate race.

[DavidByron]

It seems to me that if you look at the sort of advancements made by "progressive" voices in history they are generally not made by supporting a party, working to get that party elected and then having that party pass the legislation you wanted.

At the time of granting blacks the vote it was the Republican party that was championing that cause and the question among those progressives was whether to lobby for the women to have the vote at the same time or whether this would put more people off and cause neither group to have the vote. I think the argument that the vote really was necessary for blacks as a matter of political power, but not for women, had merit. However I'm not sure that the end decision to reject lobbying for women's vote alongside the vote for blacks at the time worked out in the end too well because of the longer term and the fact that it was felt that it would only be a few more years before women got the vote and it stretched out to many more decades.

You could see that as another question of whether to go for the politically acceptable or the long term view. I am beginning to think the long term view is better every single time.

[tas]

In defense of the Black Bloc, sometimes having them around can be useful. Without their barrier-breaking presence at the 2000 coronation inauguration protests, we would have never made it out onto Pennsylvania Ave.

Which brings me to another point: Marching and protsting is simply underplayed by the media in this day and age. I can tell you for a fact that, lining his parade route, protesters outnumbered Bush supporters by far. That wasn't how the media portrayed the story, though. Oh, just a few protesters here and there, no biggie. And it's not like the protest was staged out in the middle of nowhere where there was no media; and it's also not like these protests weren't unanticipated.

I still think that marching is important, but I think many people get discouraged because they look at the media's (non)reaction to protests and think, "Well, what's the point?" Maybe with the plight of Cindy Sheehan, media coverage will change and they will now pay more attention to protesters. Or maybe protests need to shift more towards civil disobdience and not worry so much about committing illegal actions. I'm not advocating violence (however, violence committed by the police would be an unavoidable consequence), but there were times when protests used to shut down cities. Period. Workers walked off their jobs, interections were blocked, and business was closed. That hardly ever happens anymore, and protesting seems to have been reducing to marching through the streets for a few hours and going home.

[eRobin]

That hardly ever happens anymore, and protesting seems to have been reducing to marching through the streets for a few hours and going home.

I agree that shutting down a city looks good in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory. So I'm okay with doing legal things in large numbers and leaving the civil disobedience to small groups because I don't think we're just going home anymore. We're going home to our DFA groups and other Meet-Ups. We're going home to our churches, which I know are going to pick up on this anti-war thing soon despite the resistance of leadership.

This march is picking up on that vibe. It's only part of a weekend of events including some grassroots training and a day of action for those groups on Monday. This is what the mass mobilizations are good for - raising awareness and energy levels, building community. And if we think about them that way we can stop caring if the corporate media covers us or not - that's what blogs are for.

[Georige]

I am not entirely sure of the validity of the statement, but if you do a search on google or infoshop.org concerning A.N.S.W.E.R. you may just find evidence that they are actually an authoritarian Stalinist group, which is far from what most people would be interested in supporting or marching behind.

Personally I would consider myself of the anarcho-syndicalist slant, and I'll be at the protest (hopefully with a bunch of other friends interested in dressing like zombies for the fun of it); just thought you might be interested to hear that.