Vol. 74/No. 35      September 20, 2010

“I felt the need for African Americans to come together based on the climate of racial tension,” said Imani Lumumba. She came on one of the nine buses from Philadelphia. “We needed this. We need to become more united and politically conscious.”

People came from as far away as Atlanta and Milwaukee. The rally was held at the athletic field of Dunbar High School. Participants then marched about five miles to the construction site of the National King Memorial.

Some 300 students from Howard University participated, according to Brandon Harris, president of the Howard University Students Association.

More than 500 members of the Teamsters National Black Caucus took a break from their 35th Annual Educational Conference and Banquet to attend.

Many of the 30-plus speakers at the rally expressed the point of view that the election of President Barack Obama was an advance for all African Americans. Many attacked the “Restoring Honor” rally called by Beck.

“We are here to let those folks on the Mall know that they don’t represent the dream,” said Jaime Contreras, president of SEIU-32BJ, referring to those at the Beck rally. “They represent hate-mongering and angry white people. The happy white people are here today. We will not let them stand in the way of the change we voted for!”

“They think we showed up in 2008,” said Sharpton, referring to the get-out-the-vote effort for Obama. “We’re coming out in ’10 because we’ve just begun to fight and we’re not going to let them turn back the clock.”

The Obama administration’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, spoke, as did the front-running Democratic Party candidates for D.C. mayor.

John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, addressed the rally. He encouraged people to contact their representatives in Congress to demand they vote for the bill allocating $1.25 billion for a settlement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture for discrimination against Black farmers.

A three-mile march to the site of the soon-to-be-unveiled monument to King followed the rally. The location is just a short distance from the Lincoln Memorial and the marchers interacted—generally in a cordial manner—with the thousands of participants streaming toward their buses as the “Restoring Honor” rally wound down.  
 
‘Restoring Honor’ rally
A sizeable crowd stretching from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument gathered for the “Restoring Honor” rally. CBS reported the turnout at 87,000, based on figures provided by an aerial photography company it commissioned. NBC reporter Domenico Montanaro said a Parks Service official told him the attendance was likely somewhere between 300,000 and 325,000.

The event was billed as nonpartisan and nonpolitical to promote “American” values of “honesty, integrity, merit, personal responsibility, family, and God.” Beck’s address was much more religious and circumspect than his usual on-air diatribe.

A number of those in attendance wore T-shirts or hats with logos identifying themselves with the Tea Party movement. But most of those interviewed by the Militant said they came on their own and weren’t affiliated with any organization.

Earl Rissel and his son run a two-man water treatment business in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. They came on a bus, but said they are not part of any particular organization.

“I wanted to get together with people of like mind,” Rissel told the Militant. “I’m fed up with rising taxes. I’m eating it on my end rather than raising the prices to my customers because I know that about one-third of them are out of work right now.”

“I don’t like how they’re trying to take every right you have away,” Douglas Smith, an auto worker laid off from a Mack truck engine plant in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, told the Militant. The rights Smith was particularly angry about were encroachments on the right to bear arms.

“I hate all politicians,” said Seth, a 22-year-old consultant for small businesses who wished to be identified only by his first name. He was unhappy that the rally was so “overly religious.”

His friend, John Firtin, also 22, said he came along because he was curious.

“There are too many executive abuses of power,” Firtin said. “I don’t think going back to 1776 is the solution. But I don’t like big government. I’m for social programs in a capitalist society.”

The rally began with, and was marked throughout, by tributes to honor U.S. troops. The event organizers strove to make a point about lack of respect for soldiers fighting U.S. wars by President Obama and a layer of other Democratic Party liberals. The rally promoted a scholarship fund for children of special forces soldiers killed in the line of duty.

“I’ve been introduced here as the mother of a soldier,” former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin told the crowd. “I’m proud of that distinction. I raise combat men. You can’t take that away.”

Palin said the rally was in the spirit of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Behind them, Palin said, they were linked by “the unsung deeds of ordinary people: our men and women in uniform—a force for good in the world.”

Nearly every speaker gave a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. and spoke against racism.

King’s niece, Alveda King, a prominent figure in the antiabortion movement, spoke flanked by leading Black ministers.

“The procreative foundation of marriage is being threatened, and the wombs of our mothers have become places where the blood of our children is shed in a womb war that threatens the fabric of our society,” she told the crowd.

Unlike previous rallies organized by Beck and other prominent figures in the Tea Party movement, rally organizers asked participants not to bring political signs—and virtually none were visible.
 
 
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