7-24-07, 11:30 am
Imagine the disgrace of George W. Bush speaking at a college commencement. Now imagine more than 1,000 people out on the front lawn of the college with protest signs – in Miami, where we celebrate wild success if we get 300 out for a peace rally. The last local anti-Bush protest drew about 60 people in Ft. Lauderdale. And yet, that is exactly how we (in the broadest, collective sense) met W at Miami-Dade College on April 28. This report is a look at how we managed this, in the hope that others wrestling with the maddening effort to work in coalition will find it helpful.
When the Miami Herald announced the visit, local groups began getting e-mails asking if they were planning anything. Unbeknownst to each other, two local groups – one mainstream Democrat and one progressive peace and justice – discussed the feasibility of an action and called the police for permits. We stumbled upon each other electronically. Initially, we thought of a small event – maybe we could get out 100 people. As more people expressed interest, we began talking of “a few hundred.” The calls continued. We started to look for 600 or so. The reality exceeded our wildest expectations. We were more than 1,000 strong, peacefully demanding immediate impeachment, US out of Iraq, temporary protected status for Haitians, measures to end global warming, and more. We were predominantly Anglo and Latino, but also African American and Haitian American, women and men, elders and babies, mainstream Democrats, peace activists, anarchists, veterans and everything in between. And we were united. Together we stood all along the road with our signs for hours, staying when it rained. And the response? You could barely hear yourself think, for the honking horns. Some of the most common comments overheard were: “I don’t recognize half of these people!” “What a positive energy!” and “I’ve never seen anything like this in Miami!” So, how did we pull this off?
With barely a month between the notice that Bush was coming and his arrival, we organized in a whirlwind. Not surprisingly, within a few days conflicts began to emerge. Some wanted to limit signs to the call for impeachment; there was national pressure for this, because of the A-28 national call. Others wanted to throw it open for a broad, inclusive protest to involve groups that seldom take to the streets together. Some wanted to do something subdued, polite; there was pressure to just wait for the police and Secret Service to tell us where the free speech zone would be. Others insisted it was time to demand the right to protest where we wanted, as we wanted; this meant calling in the lawyers. More than one long-time activist argued that a protest in Kendall (the relevant ‘burb) was doomed to failure. We resisted defeatism, thinking big while being prepared for small. The police just wanted to avoid the entire thing and stalled everyone.
The organizing was a wild adventure, to be sure. A core of activists met weekly, in different parts of town, to facilitate participation by everyone who might be interested. We used e-mail extensively, with a mini distribution list of local organizers and a few interested national activists. We were incredibly fortunate to have a graphic artist for our flyer, a volunteer who set up an event Web site, a team of attorneys with the National Lawyers’ Guild who devoted countless hours to assuring our right to freedom of speech, and a small core of determined activists, who worked as an ad-hoc committee, kept their “home groups” involved, posted to national Web sites, worked the list-serves, and more. The small core was committed to a broad, inclusive event, one that met our needs, not the desires of the police and Secret Service.
We strove for collective decisions, while respecting each organization’s need to work in its own way. When organizers took a supportive initiative without consulting the committee, we enthusiastically thanked them.
We asked for favors from people not centrally involved. And when some organizers did things that could have undermined collective plans, we privately analyzed these actions with our closest allies, publicly ignored the acts, and moved ahead with the tasks we’d taken on. (Groups whose divisive actions we ignored readily joined the successful event.) In the end, the ability to come together around our major area of agreement – protesting Bush’s agenda – and to set aside areas of disagreement won the day. So, what lessons can we take? Here are a few, in no particular order:
1. Struggle for inclusiveness. Invite participation from organizations that seldom, if ever, invite you. Go to their meetings, rather than expecting them to come to yours. Repeat your invitations. Not all of our efforts to include were successful, but many were.
2. Recognize that conflict is part of such efforts, but avoid getting caught up in it. Groups will give reasons to avoid working with this or that organization. Others will present seemingly rational arguments for limiting the message and/or the approach used to get the message out. These should be considered in the context of what you’re trying to achieve and the concrete conditions (political, social, material) in which you are working; don’t let those with narrow interests and prejudices restrict your efforts inappropriately. Seriously reflect on the messages that others want to bring to the mix; your group can learn from them.
3. Realize that in a rush, things will fall through the cracks. Try to avoid major holes, but accept a lack of perfection. We had no group assigned to lead the march and no peacekeepers. We were united and lucky; neither of these presented a problem.
4. Think outside of your usual approaches. If local leaders who thought Kendall was too backward for an action had really gotten behind this protest, there’s no telling how much larger it might have been. If we had listened to them, it wouldn’t have happened.
5. Make the most of opportunities that present themselves. The national attention, because of the Bush visit on April 28, the date of the A-28 effort, certainly helped us. This is similar to our January protest to shut down Guantánamo. In that situation, Code Pink had the eye of the national media; we had the US Southern Command in our backyard and a standing desire to do something near that facility. That coming together of mutual interests got us more press attention that we’d ever thought possible and a new relationship with Code Pink.
6. Don’t get hung-up on irresolvable problems. One of our very real concerns was parking, a bit of an obsession in Miami in the best of times. There wasn’t anything in the area, except on the street – and that was not especially close or easy. But there was nothing we could do about it, beyond putting maps and advice on the Web site. In the end, people figured it out and with minimal grousing!
7. Do not accept “Free Speech Zone” restrictions without a fight. We could have been buried in the back of beyond. Instead, we had a Federal judge (appointed by Bush, no less), tell the county that its protest laws were absurd. We had our space on the front lawn of the college.
With only a month, no standing coalition, widely diverse interests, and no money, we gave Miami-Dade County more than 1,000 people protesting Bush’s agenda. It’s amazing what we can do – together.
--Annie Fox is a contributing writer for Political Affairs. Send your letter to the editor to
