By Thistle Pettersen and Beth Ulion / Deep Green Resistance
A proposed iron mining effort would create the largest open pit mine in the world in northern Wisconsin.The 22,000 acres of mountain-top removal-style strip mining would potentially dump millions of tons of waste rock into the headwaters of the Bad River, polluting everything downstream including beautiful Copper Falls State Park, the Bad River Ojibwe Reservation, crucial wetland Kakagon Sloughs, and Lake Superior.
Many local residents fear that the huge mine will eat into nearby sulfide-mineral deposits, causing sulfuric acid mine drainage to leach into the surrounding watershed for decades.
The Wisconsin State legislature recently slashed environmental regulations in an attempt to make an easier entry for Gogebic Taconite (G-Tac), a Florida-based company owned by the Cline Group, is also well known for its coal mining operations in Illinois and West Virginia.
This is just one struggle in a worldwide battle against extreme resource extraction – but this time, it’s one we can win. Activists have a good head start, and there is a lot of dedicated support for those who are planning to occupy the Penokee Hills to deliver a message to G-Tac: we are drawing a line in the sand, and they will not be allowed one inch of this sacred land.
Bad River Tribal members are asking for solidarity from allies all over the Great Lakes Region.
Activists will gather at the Central Wisconsin Action Camp May 17-19th in Stevens Point, WI.
This is a great opportunity to meet others from around Central and South Wisconsin and throughout the midwest, and build direct-action skills for this historic struggle.
The crew organizing this event could really use a little help, too! Especially for those of you who are in or near Stevens Point or Madison, assistance in organizing logistics like camp setup, food, etc, as well as additional skill trainings, are greatly appreciated!
As capacity may be somewhat limited, and with the intention of building a solid group of anti-mining activists who can move into the future together, organizers are asking that you please register on the website:
If you are unable to make it to the action camp, you can still plug in by traveling even farther north the following weekend, May 24th-26th for a benefit variety show and camp out at Copper Falls State Park. The variety show fund raiser will be at the Bad River Lodge and Casino on Friday night, the 24th. Money raised at this community-building event will go towards the Penokee Hills Education Project to defend the land from harmful mining. The Red Cliff hoop dancers, Thistle and Thorns, and Barbara With are all acts on this bill that will make it a very special night of performances and comradeship with locals.
The campout is being organized by members of the Bad River Tribe and will include tours of the land where the mine is slated to be put in. Mike Wiggins, chair of the Bad River, will greet and spend time with campers. It will be a beautiful and educational weekend in the great north woods!
If you are interested in attending either of these two weekends or both of them, please contact DGR member Thistle Pettersen to plug into ride shares happening from Madison. thistle@riseup.net.
As Brazil marks its annual ‘Day of the Indian’ today, hundreds of Brazilian Indians of various tribes invaded and occupied part of the country’s Congress this week, to protest at attempts to change the law regarding their land rights.
The Indians are outraged about a proposed constitutional amendment that would weaken their hold on their territories. They fear that ‘PEC 215’, by giving Congress power in the demarcation process, will cause further delays and obstacles to the recognition and protection of their ancestral land.
The Indians say they will not stop protesting until the planned amendment is scrapped.
Alongside Directive 303, amendment 215 is a result of pressure by Brazil’s powerful rural lobby group which includes many politicians who own ranches on indigenous land.
It could spell disaster for thousands of indigenous peoples who are waiting for the government to fulfil its legal duty to map out their lands.
Whilst Brazil’s sugar-cane industry booms, benefitting from plantations on indigenous land, the Guarani Indians of Mato Grosso do Sul suffer from malnutrition, violence, murder and one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Guarani spokesman Tonico Benites explains, ‘Guarani suicide is happening and increasing as a result of the delay in identifying and demarcating our ancestral land’.
Elsewhere in the country, indigenous peoples are fighting for their land to be protected from waves of invasions at the hands of loggers, ranchers, miners and settlers. The Awá Indians in the north-eastern Amazon are now Earth’s most threatened tribe. The uncontacted Awá will not survive unless action is taken now to protect their forest.
Yesterday, the Yanomami association Hutukara organized a demonstration of about 400 Yanomami in Ajarani, in the eastern part of their territory. This area has been occupied by cattle ranchers for decades. Despite a court order to leave, they have refused to do so.
Hutukara’s vice-president Maurício Ye’kuana said, ‘The presence of the ranchers in the region has caused huge harm to the indigenous people and to the environment, such as deforestation and burning of the forest. We want an end to this.’
Meanwhile Munduruku Indians have been protesting for months against the proposal to build a series of hydro-electric dams along the Tapajós, a large tributary of the Amazon.
Last month the military and police launched ‘Operation Tapajós’ in an attempt to stamp out the Indians’ protests against the arrival of technical teams surveying the area for the first dam, São Luis do Tapajós.
On 16 April a federal judge ordered that this operation be suspended, and that the Indians and other affected communities be consulted before technical studies are carried out. The judge also ruled that an environmental impact assessment should be carried out on the cumulative impact of all the dams planned for the Tapajós.
At 9 am on an overcast morning in paradise, hundreds of protesters gathered in traditional Hawaiian chant and prayer. Upon hearing the sound of the conch shell, known here as Pū, the protesters followed a group of women towards Monsanto’s grounds.
“A’ole GMO,” cried the mothers as they marched alongside Monsanto’s cornfields, located only feet from their homes on Molokai, one of the smallest of Hawaii’s main islands. In a tiny, tropical corner of the Pacific that has warded off tourism and development, Monsanto’s fields are one of only a few corporate entities that separates the bare terrain of the mountains and oceans.
This spirited marchwas the last of a series of protests on the five Hawaiian islands that Monsanto and other biotech companies have turned into the world’s ground zero for chemical testing and food engineering.Hawai’i is currently at the epicenter of the debate over genetically modified organisms, generally shortened to GMOs. Because Hawai’i is geographically isolated from the broader public, it is an ideal location for conducting chemical experiments. The island chain’s climate and abundant natural resources have lured five of the world’s largest biotech chemical corporations: Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Pioneer and BASF. In the past 20 years, these chemical companies have performed over 5,000 open-field-test experiments of pesticide-resistant crops on an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 acres of Hawaiian land without any disclosure, making the place and its people a guinea pig for biotech engineering.
The presence of these corporations has propelled one of the largest movement mobilizations in Hawai’i in decades. Similar to the environmental and land sovereignty protests in Canada and the continental United States, the movement is influenced by indigenous culture.
“All of the resources that our kapuna [elders] gave to us, we need to take care of now for the next generation,” said Walter Ritte, a Hawai’i activist, speaking in part in the Hawaiian indigenous language.
“That is our kuleana [responsibility]. That is everybody’s kuleana.”
In Hawaiian indigenous culture, the very idea of GMOs is effectively sacrilegious.
“For Hawaii’s indigenous peoples, the concepts underlying genetic manipulation of life forms are offensive and contrary to the cultural values of aloha ‘ʻāina [love for the land],” wrote Mililani B. Trask, a native Hawaiian attorney.
Deadly practices
Monsanto has a long history of making chemicals that bring about devastation. The company participated in the Manhattan Project to help produce the atomic bomb during World War II. It developed the herbicide “Agent Orange” used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War, which caused an estimated half-million birth deformities. Most recently, Monsanto has driven thousands of farmers in India to take their own lives, often by drinking chemical insecticide, after the high cost of the company’s seeds forced them into unpayable debt.
The impacts of chemical testing and GMOs are immediate — and, in the long-term, could prove deadly. In Hawaii, Monsanto and other biotech corporations have sprayed over 70 different chemicals during field tests of genetically engineered crops, more chemical testing than in any other place in the world. Human studies have not been conducted on GMO foods, but animal experiments show that genetically modified foods lead to pre-cancerous cell growth, infertility, and severe damage to the kidneys, liver and large intestines. Additionally, the health risks of chemical herbicides sprayed onto GMO crops cause hormone disruption, cancer, neurological disorders and birth defects. In Hawaii, some open-field testing sites are near homes and schools. Prematurity, adult on-set diabetes and cancer rates have significantly increased in Hawai’i in the last ten years. Many residents fear chemical drift is poisoning them.
Monsanto’s agricultural procedures also enable the practice of monocropping, which contributes to environmental degradation, especially on an island like Hawai’i. Monocropping is an agricultural practice where one crop is repeatedly planted in the same spot, a system that strips the soil of its nutrients and drives farmers to use a herbicide called Roundup, which is linked to infertility. Farmers are also forced to use pesticides and fertilizers that cause climate change and reef damage, and that decrease the biodiversity of Hawai’i.
Food sovereignty as resistance
At the first of the series of marches against GMOs, organizers planted coconut trees in Haleiwa, a community on the north shore of Oahu Island. In the movement, protesting and acting as caretakers of the land are no longer viewed as separate actions, particularly in a region where Monsanto is leasing more than 1,000 acres of prime agricultural soil.
During the march, people chanted and held signs declaring, “Aloha ‘āina: De-occupy Hawai’i.”
The phrase aloha ‘āina is regularly seen and heard at anti-GMO protests. Today the words are defined as “love of the land,” but the phrase has also signified “love for the country.” Historically, it was commonly used by individuals and groups fighting for the restoration of the independent Hawaiian nation, and it is now frequently deployed at anti-GMO protests when people speak of Hawaiian sovereignty and independence.
After the protest, marchers gathered in Haleiwa Beach Park, where they performed speeches, music, spoken-word poetry and dance while sharing free locally grown food. The strategy of connecting with the land was also a feature of the subsequent protest on the Big Island, where people planted taro before the march, and also at the state capitol rally, where hundreds participated in the traditional process of pounding taro to make poi, a Polynesian staple food.
The import economy is a new reality for Hawaii, one directly tied to the imposition of modern food practices on the island. Ancient Hawai’i operated within the Ahupua’a system, a communal model of distributing land and work, which allowed the islands to be entirely self-sufficient.
“Private land ownership was unknown, and public, common use of the ahupua’a resources demanded that boundaries be drawn to include sufficient land for residence and cultivation, freshwater sources, shoreline and open ocean access,” explained Carol Silva, an historian and Hawaiian language professor.
Inspired by the Ahupua’a model, the food sovereignty movement is building an organic local system that fosters the connections between communities and their food — a way of resisting GMOs while simultaneously creating alternatives.
Colonial history
The decline of the Ahupua’a system didn’t only set Hawai’i on the path away from food sovereignty; it also destroyed the political independence of the now-U.S. state. And indeed, when protesters chant “aloha ‘āina” at anti-GMO marches, they are alluding to the fact that this fight isn’t only over competing visions of land use and food creation. It’s also a battle for the islands’ political sovereignty.
Historically, foreign corporate interests have repeatedly taken control of Hawai’i — and have exploited and mistreated the land and its people in the process.
“It’s a systemic problem and the GMO issue just happens to be at the forefront of public debate at the moment,” said Keoni Lee of ʻŌiwi TV. “ʻĀina [land] equals that which provides. Provides for who?”
The presence of Monsanto and the other chemical corporations is eerily reminiscent of the business interests that led to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Throughout the 19th century, the Hawaiian Kingdom was recognized as an independent nation. That reality changed in 1893, when a group of American businessmen and sugar planters orchestrated a U.S. Marine’s armed coup d’etat of the Hawaiian Kingdom government.
Five years later, the U.S. apprehended the islands for strategic military use during the Spanish-American War despite local resistance. Even then-President Grover Cleveland called the overthrow a “substantial wrong” and vowed to restore the Hawaiian kingdom. But the economic interests overpowered the political will, and Hawai’i remained a U.S. colony for the following 60 years.
The annexation of Hawai’i profited five sugarcane-manufacturing companies commonly referred to as the Big Five: Alexander & Baldwin, Amfac (American Factors), Castle & Cooke, C. Brewer, and Theo H. Davies. Most of the founders of these companies were missionaries who were actively involved in lobbying for the annexation of the Hawaiian islands in 1898. After the takeover, the Big Five manipulated great political power and influence in what was then considered the “Territory of Hawaii,” gaining unparalleled control of banking, shipping and importing on the island chain. The companies only sponsored white republicans in government, creating an oligarchy that threatened the labor force if it voted against their interests. The companies’ environmental practices, meanwhile, caused air and water pollution and altered the biodiversity of the land.
The current presence of the five-biotech chemical corporations in Hawai’i mirrors the political and economic colonialism of the Big Five in the early 20th century — particularly because Monsanto has become the largest employer on Molokai.
“There is no difference between the “Big Five” that actually ruled Hawai’i in the past,” said Walter Ritte. “Now it’s another “Big Five,” and they’re all chemical companies. So it’s almost like this is the same thing. It’s like déjàvu.”
Rising up
At the opening of this year’s legislative session on January 16, hundreds of farmers, students and residents marched to the state capitol for a rally titled “Idle No More: We the People.” There, agricultural specialist and food sovereignty activist Vandana Shiva, who traveled from India to Hawai’i for the event, addressed the crowd.
“I see Hawai’i not as a place where I come and people say, ‘Monsanto is the biggest employer,’ but people say, ‘this land, its biodiversity, our cultural heritage is our biggest employer,’” she said.
As she alluded to, a major obstacle facing the anti-GMO movement is the perception that the chemical corporations provide jobs that otherwise might not exist — an economic specter that the sugarcane companies also wielded to their advantage. Anti-GMO organizers are aware of how entrenched this power is.
“The things that we’re standing up against are really at the core of capitalism,” proclaimed Hawaiian rights activist Andre Perez at the rally.
Given the enormity of the enemy, anti-GMO activists are attacking the issue from a variety of fronts, including organizing mass education, advocating for non-GMO food sovereignty and pushing for legislative protections. Organizers see education, in particular, as the critical element to win this battle.
“Hawai’i has the cheapest form of democracy,” said Daniel Anthony, a young local activist and founder of a traditional poi business. “Here we can educate a million people, and Monsanto is out.”
Others are using art to educate the public, such as Hawaiian rapper Hood Prince, who rails against Monsanto in his song “Say No to GMO.” This movement is also educating the community through teach-ins and the free distribution of the newly released book Facing Hawaii’s Future: Essential Information about GMOs.
Hawai’i has already succeeded in protecting its traditional food from genetic engineering. Similar to the way the Big Five controlled varying sectors of society, the biotech engineering companies are financially linked to the local government, schools and university. Monsanto partially funds the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at the University of Hawaii. The university and the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center began the process of genetically engineering taro in 2003 after the university patented three of its varieties. Once this information became widely known, it incited uproar of objection from the Hawaiian community. Taro holds spiritual significance in the islands’ indigenous culture, in which it is honored as the first Hawaiian ancestor in the creation story.
“It felt like we were being violated by the scientific community,” wrote Ritte in Facing Hawaii’s Future. “For the Hawaiian community, taro is not just a plant. It’s a family member. It’s our common ancestor‘Haloa …. They weren’t satisfied with just taking our land; now they wanted to take our mana, our spirit too.”
The public outcry eventually drove the university to drop its patents.
Anti-GMO activists are hoping for further successes in stopping genetic food engineering. In the current legislative session, there are about a dozen proposed bills pushing GMO regulation, labeling and a ban on all imported GMO produce. These fights over mandating GMO labeling and regulation in Hawai’i may seem like a remote issue, but what happens on these isolated islands is pivotal for land sovereignty movements across the globe.
“These five major chemical companies chose us to be their center,” said Ritte. “So whatever we do is going to impact everybody in the world.”
An Amazonian community has threatened to “go to war” with the Brazilian government after what they say is a military incursion into their land by dam builders.
The Munduruku indigenous group in Para state say they have been betrayed by the authorities, who are pushing ahead with plans to build a cascade of hydropower plants on the Tapajós river without their permission.
Public prosecutors, human rights groups, environmental organisations and Christian missionaries have condemned what they call the government’s strong-arm tactics.
According to witnesses in the area, helicopters, soldiers and armed police have been involved in Operation Tapajós, which aims to conduct an environmental impact assessment needed for the proposed construction of the 6,133MW São Luiz do Tapajós dam.
The facility, to be built by the Norte Energia consortium, is the biggest of two planned dams on the Tapajós, the fifth-largest river in the Amazon basin. The government’s 10-year plan includes the construction of four larger hydroelectric plants on its tributary, the Jamanxim.
Under Brazilian law, major infrastructure projects require prior consultation with indigenous communities. Federal prosecutors say this has not happened and urge the courts to block the scheme which, they fear, could lead to bloodshed.
“The Munduruku have already stated on several occasions that they do not support studies for hydroelectric plants on their land unless there is full prior consultation,” the prosecutors noted in a statement.
However, a court ruling last week gave the go-ahead for the survey. Government officials say that neither researchers nor logistical and support teams will enter indigenous villages. The closest they will get is about 30 miles from the nearest village, Sawré Maybu.
The ministry of mines and energy noted on its website that 80 researchers, including biologists and foresters, would undertake a study of flora and fauna. The army escort was made possible by President Dilma Rousseff, who decreed this year that military personnel could be used for survey operations. Officials say the security is for the safety of the scientists and the local population.
Missionaries said the presence of armed troops near Sawré Maybu village, Itaituba, was intimidating, degrading and an unacceptable violation of the rights of the residents.
“In this operation, the federal government has been threatening the lives of the people,” the Indigenous Missionary Council said. “It is unacceptable and illegitimate for the government to impose dialogue at the tip of a bayonet.”
The group added that Munduruku leaders ended a phone call with representatives of the president with a declaration of war. They have also issued open letters calling for an end to the military operation. “We are not bandits. We feel betrayed, humiliated and disrespected by all this,” a letter states.
One of the community’s leaders, Valdenir Munduruku, has warned that locals will take action if the government does not withdraw its taskforce by 10 April, when the two sides are set to talk. He has called for support from other indigenous groups, such as the Xingu, facing similar threats from hydroelectric dams.
Environmental groups have expressed concern. The 1,200-mile waterway is home to more than 300 fish species and provides sustenance to some of the most biodiverse forest habitats on Earth. Ten indigenous groups inhabit the basin, along with several tribes in voluntary isolation.
With similar conflicts over other proposed dams in the Amazon, such as those at Belo Monte, Teles Pires, Santo Antônio and Jirau, some compare the use of force to the last great expansion of hydropower during the military dictatorship.
“The Brazilian government is making political decisions about the dams before the environmental impact assessment is done,” said Brent Millikan of the International Rivers environmental group.
“The recent military operations illustrate that the federal government is willing to disregard existing legal instruments intended to foster dialogue between government and civil society.”
By Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin / Memphis Black Autonomy Federation
To grasp what happened at the March 30, 2013 Klan demonstration, you need to understand what led up to everything. The Klan said it came to Memphis to protest the renaming of the racist Memphis Confederate Parks system. Of course, all police preparations and media reporting claimed that the cops “had” to create a downtown police security zone of 10-12 square blocks to “keep the peace”, and not repeat the so-called anti-Klan “riot” of 1998, which was blamed on protesters then, but actually was a police riot as a result of an order by then-Mayor Willie Herenton to gas and beat protesters because they were approaching the Klan through breaks in the police line.
So, using that mantra of “preventing a riot”, and also the media propaganda that this was a “new” Klan group, in response to critics who asked why the Klan was being allowed to protest at all, they put together a police army of 600 cops, 4 military armored cars with machine guns, a chain link fence to separate protesters from Klan, and confined the residents of Memphis behind a line of paramilitary riot police to “protect” the Klan from the people. Of course, the obvious reflection was that this happened over 15 years ago and that the anti-Klan protest movement was “new” as well, did not penetrate the prevailing myth circulated by the cops and the lapdog media.
Our movement, the Memphis Black Autonomy Federation, had created a broad-based group called the Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality to bring out Memphis residents, but also anti-fascist activists from throughout the Southern and Midwestern regions. We tried at first to have a meeting at city hall, but this was refused by a groups of businessmen, then the city permit office refused a permit for the same area as the Klan, which was at the courthouse itself, just a few hours before. Then, the cops wanted to not allow any more than 100 people from the community come to the event, but we fought that, and they apparently allowed everyone to go in, including white supremacist supporters and anti-Klan activists. This latter decision was a recipe for disaster, we felt, and we did not initially feel that it would be safe to go inside. If someone got to fighting a Klan supporter, they could be shot and we all would have been in danger. We decided to press on anyway.
If we had not applied for the city parade permit, no one would have been allowed to protest at all, and we would not have even known of their security plans at all. Only because we kept prodding the city to back off on at least some of its security precautions, did they agree to allow the protest. They then issued the permit at the last minute, and the lapdog media dutifully reported it, including the city’s denial that it had ever denied our permits. This little media report would prove to be the undoing of the city’s plans for total denial of the event, and its plans of discouraging any protest through media saturation by the Mayor and government officials who time and again tried to frighten, scold, and intimidate people from coming down to an anti-Klan event. Just the fact that people knew that there was going to be a protest made them come down to the event, even if they were totally unfamiliar with our movement.
The day before the event we were concerned about being pushed into a “protest pit” as was done at many other events in other cities and was used to crush the anti-globalization movement, and because the original plan called for us all to be shoved into a small space on the side of the courthouse itself, we decided that it would be a threat to our security to go in that space, and we called for an activist General Assembly at a nearby park, which was outside the police protest zone, to discuss options. So about 150 of us met at Court Square park, and talked about going to the Forrest Park and attacking the statute itself, but then the cops came up and told us that we “had” to go to the “security zone”, and we feigned going there, but in fact we had prepared a number of signs saying “Cops Stifle Free Speech!” and about 150 of us marched down to police lines and protested the police state methods of controlling the protest.
The cops were perplexed, and a small number of them tried to chase us around or steer us into the barbed wire area, but we refused to go. It was a standoff, but they did not arrest anybody or beat us up. It was clear that they did not want to break their ranks to try to arrest all of us, so we took advantage of the moment and kept protesting. Then we moved towards the park, but there was a split between those who wanted to go inside the police lines, and those who did not. The group started splintering. After much soul searching, we decided we would go inside. So we headed for the entrance, and many followed us. The cops had everybody head through TSA style metal detectors, empty our pockets, and searched us. They seized all papers, pamphlets, protest signs, and denied you entry if you were wearing “radical” t-shirts of Che Guevara or Huey Newton, but also Jefferson Davis or N.B. Forrest attire. They seized our bullhorns, but returned one of them as we were entering the event.
When we got inside, everyone seemed subdued, and there was no chanting or screaming, everyone was just looking for signs of the Klan to show. The Klan was kept 2-3 football fields away from us, who were behind barbed wire. There was a long line of riot police inside arrayed as a gauntlet we had to pass, then there were police snipers on the roof, and a line of police standing across from us, about five deep and then others on horseback. They never moved for five hours, just stared ahead at us in military formation.
What made us feel good about going inside is that there was in fact a large number of people already inside waiting on us. They kept streaming in. These were not the usual white middle class activists or the old civil rights deadheads, these were working class Black people of every age. They were angry as hell because the Mayor had brought these “Ku Klux Kowards” to town, and had put us behind barbed wire and coddled the Klan. The Klan came on special city buses, only about 60 of them, which contained riot police and a special security wing of Memphis police and Shelby County Sheriffs.
On March 30th, sixty-five Ku Klux Klan members gathered at the steps of the Shelby County Court House and marched in response to the recent name changes of three previously confederate parks in Memphis. One of these parks, formerly known as Bedford Forest Park, was renamed Health and Science Park. Nathan Forest was the first grand wizard of the Klan and was responsible for massacring over three hundred black people during the Civil War.
Twelve hundred people turned out to the counter protest demonstration against the Klan despite the alternative event across town put on and promoted by Mayor A. C. Wharton Jr. and city officials with live music and Easter festivities in efforts to discourage people from going to the rally site. The majority of those in attendance were residents of Memphis, however many organizations came from outside of Memphis including Florida Anti-Fascists, KC IWW from St. Louis, IWW, Deep Green Resistance, Black Autonomy Federation from Memphis, Concerned Citizens for Justice Team from Chattanooga, TN., Chattanoogans Organized for Action, Black Bloc Chicago, Anti Racist Action, Memphis Black gang members rep, Let’s Organize the Hood, and Direct Action Memphis.
Many of those who gathered marched down the streets, but were latter funneled into “Free Speech” zones where they could not see or get near the Klan. Hundreds of police in militarized gear lined the streets of downtown Memphis and lined the fences of the gated designated protest area. Lorenzo Ervin, a founding member of the Black Autonomy Federation and a main organizer of the counter protest wrote in a note entitled “Memphis Anti-Klan Demonstration: Protesting in a Police State“: “…in response to critics who asked why the Klan was being allowed to protest at all, they put together a police army of 600 cops, 4 military armored cars with machine guns, a chain link fence to separate protesters from Klan, and confine the residents of Memphis behind a line of paramilitary riot police was used to “protect” the Klan from the people.”
Thirty one year old Cedric Moore of Tipton County (twenty miles from Memphis) stated that “if the KKK had a real point to prove they wouldn’t need these police”. His sister, thirty-five year old Porteia More who is also a resident of Tipton County expressed her reasoning for coming out to the counter demonstration: “They came here years ago and I wasn’t able to come… I made it a point to be here on today but I did not know we would not have a chance to see them. I wanted to understand why they were here and marching… I understand they don’t want the symbol to be changed but it’s time for everyone just to get along.”
When asked what her opinion was of the police response to protestors she responded: “I think it’s just too much going on. We see many police out in uniform versus the KKK… I think it’s too much.” Twenty-year-old Lando from Horn Lake, Mississippi echoed similar sentiments: “It looks they are treating us like the enemy… They have police from all counties out here. All this money invested in some KKK.”
JoNina Ervin, standing chair of the Black Autonomy Federation and organizer of the counter protest, took issue with the permit process and what she views as an overall violation of people’s right to free speech. The Black Autonomy Federation had to apply three times to hold their protest and were finally approved only two days before the march. In the past, authority to approve permits lay in the hands of the city council, but it was changed to the police director the 19th of March two days before they applied for their first permit. “We thought the procedures to get the permit were unconstitutional,” stated JoNina.
“Once we find an attorney we want to go to court to challenge the city ordinance. We were told we could not bring any leaflets, flyers or posters into the protest area… I noticed at the Klan rally through videos they had posters. Our free speech has been restrained. How can you voice your first amendment rights when you’re being intimidated? Pretty soon we won’t have any free speech rights unless we challenge these policies.”
No one was hurt that day, and only one arrest was made.
If you would like to get in contact with the Black Autonomy Federation or offer support, please contact them at Organize.the.hood@gmail.com.
