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The March, Sun 11/18/01 The second day was a march up to the gate of Ft. Benning, the military base where the School of the Americas is located. It was a solemn ceremony where five thousand people carried crosses bearing the names of victims of SOA graduates. The names were also sung over a loud speaker and after each name the crowd sang "Presenté" It took hours to read all of the names. Many of the names were followed by descriptions such as "infant" or "six years old" or "day laborer" or "grandmother".
The puppets were transported in a U-Haul and unloaded quickly in a parking lot while a tow truck stood by. Once again, hundreds of people were taught how to play their parts in the pageant. The performance this time was street-theater and it was hard for me to see the actual performance with Aidan. We stepped back and he just danced in the street to Steve's drumming and the other music. Most of the pictures that I have here are of the unpacking of the truck, preparing, and parading up to the gates of the base. The puppets were ready quite some time before the recitation of names was completed, so the puppets were being held up and the stilt walkers were on stilts for about an hour before they actually performed. That's a long time for the people under the big puppets especially. I thought the dragon was on fire once - it was someone underneath it having a cigarette. Steve was doing that drumming thing that he does during this time. After the performance, the "System" dragon was thrown over the fence and onto the Ft. Benning. Democracy Now! reported 10,000 protesters there. They were an interesting group that included religious organizations and clergy along with college students by the busload, families, and more radical types. Many of the puppetistas were part of Catholic Worker communities. It was a very peaceful and thoughtful group of people. Along with the message to close the SOA there was strong anti-war sentiment. When we left on Monday, one of the puppetistas gave us "liberate" headbands that the bird carriers had worn and dared us to wear them on the plane and see if we got searched. It turned out that we DID get searched, thouroughly, TWICE. Steve finally asked if we were on a list. It turned out to be because we had one way tickets and we had changed one of them at the last minute. And we weren't even wearing the headbands There are some other websites with great pictures of the puppets and the protest in general. Click here, here or here. And here's one more. If you've read this far and haven't written to your representatives yet to close the SOA, do it now! Thanks for looking! Christy |
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