One Big March
Syracuse City Eagle
Walt Shepperd
September 20th, 2007
Howie Hawkins was asking what was the biggest protest demonstration ever in Syracuse.
He had seen some big ones in his day, especially in his work with the Clamshell Alliance, which stymied a nuclear power facility in New Hampshire. But he wasn't around for the one he was asking about, a 1969 affair which put thousands in the streets of downtown Syracuse protesting the Vietnam War, stalling buses shipping inductees off to basic training, and championed by an ironic advocate.
Back in that day numbers were hard to judge. Demonstration organizers tended to double the head count, while policy sometimes quartered the turn out. But the Police Chief Tom Sardino was quick to boast that his force had handled the largest per capita peace demonstration in the country.
Whatever the final tally, the jail proved too small to handle all those arrested, and the Educational Opportunity Center was commandeered by police as a temporary holding facility for the mass of detainees.
It was big.
When he asked the question, Hawkins was standing in the Everson Plaza on Sept. 10, promoting what organizers hope will be the largest demonstration ever seen in the city, Saturday Sept. 29, with a 1 p.m. rally at the Everson Museum Plaza and a march to the Syracuse University campus.
Hosted by the Syracuse Peace Council and SEIU local 1199, the effort has over 55 groups committed statewide, from Capital District Neighbors for Peace in Albany to the Interfaith Peace Network of Western New York in Buffalo, from the Justice and Peace Advisory Council in Binghamton to the Iraq Veterans Against the War in Fort Drum.
Syracuse Peace Council staffer Jessica Maxwell called the anticipated gathering a new powerful regional coalition and Hawkins noted the unique element of soldiers from Fort Drum actually initiating the call in June. Organizers, including the Green Party, American Friends Service Committee, the local Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace, began spreading the word in July.
The theme of the rally and march is "Bring the Troops Home Now," a demand for the removal, not redeployment of all 160,000, with reparations to the Iraqi people and full health benefits for returning veterans.
In a prepared statement circulated at the Plaza, Al Davidoff, vice-president of SEIU 1199, whose union includes many health care workers, is quoted saying, "Working families have paid a double price for this needless war. First it is the working class who has sacrificed our loved ones' bodies and lives. Second America's most basic needs like affordable health care, and quality education, have gone unaddressed and underfunded while we spend $10 billion a week in Iraq."
AFSC worker Twiggy Billue shared estimates of what the money spent on the Iraqi occupation would have done locally by projected the 25th Congressional district's portion at $1.34 billion. "that could have provided 115, 665 children with health care for the length of the Iraq war," she said, "or built 7,635 units of affordable housing, or built 94 elementary schools."
"Before this war began," veteran activist Frank Woolever told those gathered on the Plaza, "many Americans gathered in Syracuse, New York City, Washington D.C. and around the country to say 'no' to a preemtive strike. Many of us knew at the time that this action was a mistake. Now some of the veterans returning from that ill-conceived occupation are speaking out. We need to listen and join their effort."
"Even [Rep. Jim] Walsh says there is not a military solution," Hawkins said.