Organizing for Oct. 5th in Washington, DC got off to a good start with a meeting of about 60 people at The Potter’s House cafe and bookstore in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood. People came in response to PSAs and interviews with World Can’t Wait activists on the local Pacifica Radio affiliate, a full page ad in the Washington City Paper, posters with the color New York Times ad, leafleting and e-mails. People heard about the meeting from different sources, and it made a difference. They came from DC, northern Virginia and Maryland. The crowd was a mixture of activists and a lot of people who were not regular “meeting goers” but who were serious about the need to stop what’s happening and getting down on how to do it.
Going into the meeting, the WCW DC office received calls and e-mails
from people in other areas of the country and the DC area. Some of
these were in response to the New York Times ad and an appearance by
Travis Morales on C-SPAN speaking at a press conference for Camp
Democracy. One woman was a concentration camp survivor in Colorado who
is devoting her life to making sure this does not happen again. Another
woman who called is a reggae promoter in Georgia who downloaded World
Can’t Wait literature who sent it across the country to radio DJ’s.
After the meeting we have received phone calls and e-mails from people
locally who missed the meeting. They want to know what happened and
the plans made and they want World Can’t Wait materials to distribute.
The
meeting started with a moving reading of the Call by an actor and
Professor of Theater at the Catholic University of America in DC.
Speakers included Malik Rahim of Common Ground in New Orleans, Kevin
Zeese of Democracy Rising, Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus,
and local attorney Bob Crowe.
Malik Rahim exposed the crimes of
the Bush regime in purposely leaving 150,000 mainly Black people to die
in New Orleans. In his remarks, Kevin Zeese mentioned an interview
that Democracy Rising did with WCW National Coordinator Debra Sweet
recently. He cited her experience as a teenager confronting President
Nixon as an example of what individuals can do. He said, “The whole
earth is under threat,” and pointed to the impending U.S. invasion of
Iran and the danger of world war. “These are serious times,” he said.
“We desperately need to change course,” and it is up to the people to
do it.
Rev. Yearwood had just returned from New Orleans. He
said, ” this is the most important meeting you could be at right now,”
because of the great need to drive out the Bush regime.
Bob Crowe talked about a recent report by the American Bar Association
about Bush’s dangerous use of signing statements to circumvent laws
passed by Congress and to concentrate power in his hands, eliminating
the long standing principle of the separation of powers.
A
member of the Network of Spiritual Progressives reported that a few
days earlier their national office had sent an e-mail to the 100
chapters of the Network of Spiritual Progressives and Tikkun
communities urging them to attend and support the World Can’t Wait
meetings. He said he looked forward to working together. Mary Lou
Greenberg presented a dramatic vision of October 5 including a
convergence at the White House from high schools, different communities
and religious leaders and congregations, stretching “Crime Scene” tape
in front of it to declare the White House a crime scene. Travis Morales
gave the national presentation of World Can’t Wait, to which people
intently listened.
Most people stayed for the breakouts to get
organized and make plans. These include: people from the religious
community reaching out to different faiths; outreach to the huge number
of organizations in the DC area; putting ads in local community papers
and getting PSA’s on local radio stations; flyering at upcoming major
events and planning the event itself.
Initial fund-raising plans
were made, but much more needs to be done in this arena right away,
including planning house parties, phone banking and reaching
potentially major donors. Going into the meeting we had raised over
$5,000 for the local newspaper ad, leaflets, posters and materials for
the meeting. We need to quickly do this many times over.
Working
group meetings were set up, and many left with big stacks of flyers. We
urge everyone in the DC-Maryland and Virginia to call us and get hooked
in. We urge you to contribute your skills, your energies, your
creativity and imagination, and not least, to contribute financially to
this most urgently needed effort. As the meeting’s speakers eloquently
laid out: the world truly can’t wait!