A poverty rights protest peaked with arrest of five activists Friday, just prior to the Opening Ceremony.
The March for Our Lives, a rally that arrived in President’s Circle, attracted both local and national groups, all loosely united under the banner of poverty issues.
Protesters congregated at Reservoir Park, located near Greek Row, Friday afternoon before heading onto the U’s campus. There, speakers addressed welfare reform, immigration, a living wage and other issues, decrying massive amounts of money spent elsewhere.
“Real homeland security is feeding, clothing and housing ourselves and our children,” said Cheri Honkala, executive director of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, a Philadelphia-based group. “God is definitely on the side of the poor.”
The march began as dramatically as it ended. Protesters lined the sidewalk of the park. Ahead of them police in yellow and black lined the road. As the chant “hey-hey-ho-ho poverty must go,” rose up from the crowd of about 500, the presidential motorcade passed in front of them and behind the police line. After the cars had passed, police dispersed and the march began, creeping toward campus.
At its destination, the march curled up the north end of President’s Circle. On University Avenue, a second yellow and black police line blocked off access to Rice-Eccles Stadium and the Opening Ceremony. However, five female protesters, including Honkala, continued their walk in that direction police. The women stopped when they could go no further, nose to nose with police. The crowd remained behind them in the designated protest area. Police with riot gear began arriving. “Amazing Grace,” both sung and hummed, arose from the crowd lined up on President’s Circle.
The standoff continued for several moments. Finally, a police official told the women to move back.
“If you fail to do so, you will be taken to jail,” he said. “I’m declaring this an unlawful assembly.”
The women did not move and police pushed back the media that surrounded them, taking the five protesters into custody. As she was put into a police van, Honkala yelled to the media, “Poor exist in America. Tell the whole world.”
After the arrests, the crowd filtered back toward Reservoir Park.
About 15 legal observers with the American Civil Liberties Union watched over the events.
Janelle Eurick, an ACLU staff attorney who oversaw the observers, said the civil disobedience did not come as a surprise. “They were planning on getting arrested,” she said.
The observers came to record the use of unnecessary force, if it occurred. However, the police handled Friday’s events completely “by the book,” she said. “We’re surprised everything is going so well.”
Police were just fulfilling their duty of “safety and security for everyone,” according to Salt Lake County Deputy Mark Olsen.
The Opening Ceremony of the Olympics was both backdrop and target for the march, which drew international media.
“The Olympics provide a distraction,” said Pete Litster, a member of the local Citizen Activist Network, as he introduced the “alternative torch run,” which arrived in Reservoir Park earlier that afternoon. The Games take money and attention away from the marginalized, he said.
Protesters thew products and symbols of Budweiser, Coke, Texaco and General Motors into a bag intended to weigh down the protester/torchbearer and decry the corporatization of the Games.
Andy Jones, a U alumni, held a doll with the words “GM owns my body” written across her plastic skin. The toy represented GM’s discrimination against women of child-bearing age in Mexico, he said.
“I think we need to show the Olympics for what they really are,” he said.
But not everyone shared the enmity toward the Olympics.
“We’re trying to get a message out. At this moment the eyes of the world are on the Olympics,” said Willie Baptist, KWRU education director, who is himself homeless. “While the Olympics is something to be respected, the lives of people are something to be respected.”
The events of Sept. 11 made life seem all the more precious, a message he feels should carry through the protest.
Baptist wore an orange vest, indicating he was part of the internal security for the protest. “We want to do everything we can to work with local authorities,” he said.
“I think its important that people band together and say ‘we exist,'” said Lisa Shaw, a senior at the U studying women’s studies who attended the march.