On Saturday August 17, I attended a march for civil rights in Central Seattle. This march was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the famous March On Washington where MLK gave his famous I Have A Dream speech. The event was organized and funded by The Black Trade Unionists.
Due to bad traffic I arrived after the rally, but in time for the march about a mile and a half away to Martin Luther King Memorial Park. The crowd of 300 to 400 people chanted slogans such as, “Jobs and freedom. Working people need ‘em.” and “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” During the march I noticed many came out on their front porches to watch, but no one joined us, proving my point that many still look upon democracy as a spectator sport and would rather not get involved.
Upon arriving at the park, everyone gathered around a large fountain to listen to various speeches and recognitions of some VIPs in the audience including local senators and congressional reps and even Mayor McGinn of Seattle and a candidate for Seattle School Board.
The various speakers emphasized the need to join together and fight against things like Florida’s Stand Your Ground law “where you can shoot someone for holding a bottle of iced tea and the size of your hoodie.” This statement brought several raucous cheers from the rapt crowd. The need to invest in education and health care was mentioned time and again. There was a booth there to free Marissa Alexander, the woman who was given a long prison term for simply firing a gun to ward off her abusive husband who was trespassing on her property. Ms. Alexander is black.
Several local pastors were in attendance and gave speeches and a couple were even married at the event. Their vows were totally traditional and I took note of the clause where the woman was asked to “obey” her husband, but he was not asked the same.
One topic that hit a raw nerve with me was the school to prison pipeline where mostly black and Latino youth who don’t finish high school are basically given the choice to join the military or go to prison. Our tax dollars are going to pay for private prisons who made over $600 billion in profits in 2012 alone.
The leader of CBTU spoke of the need for higher wages and better benefits such as medical, dental and retirement (all of which are being taken away all over the country).
He also made mention of how the poverty rate in 1968 was twelve percent whereas now it’s over fifteen percent and out of that fifteen percent, thirty-six percent are children.
Another speaker made mention of the Voting Rights Act that was recently gutted by SCOTUS and how many states are now passing draconian voting laws. We now have a black president, but he’s been subjected to the most obstruction than any president in history.
Although the speeches were very informative and moving, there was a lot of mention of god, which I felt unnecessary. This was a Civil Rights rally and not a church sermon.
I surveyed the crowd and saw a healthy mix of people both black and white, but no other ethnicities present. There were no people of Asian heritage, no Muslims, no Hispanics, etc. Perhaps the majority of people still feel that Civil Rights is a black issue alone, which couldn’t be further from the truth. While CEO wages have risen a staggering thirty percent, wages for the average worker have decreased by about the same amount. Our pensions are being siphoned into CEO pay so many of us can no longer afford to retire. The CEOs of Walmart and fast food restaurants make upward of $20 million a year while refusing to pay their employees more than minimum wage. In some states restaurant workers must work for tips only — no wages and this is legal.
I was disheartened by the lack of turn out. Three or four hundred is a small number considering we all are being attacked by the very people we elect to represent us. Ironically, I attended a Storm basketball game that very night where a few thousand people were in attendance. Why is it people are so willing to set aside time to watch a sporting event or a concert, but not to participate in their democracy? When will enough people wake up and realize that we no longer have a democracy because they were too busy reading the sports section of the paper to pay attention to what our elected leaders are doing to dismantle democracy?
– Hollly Homan
