Today was the last day of school for Atlanta public schools and we were given a monumental challenge. Saji, Josie, and I were given the opportunity to do our, "Be The Change" presentation to four different classes. Normally this would be no problem but given that fact that we would be competing with the pure excitement that come with the last day of school, well, we've all been there.
The "Be The Change" presentation is something we put together specifically for classroom presentations. The presentation's focus is Dr. King's message and work in the last year of his life. The presentation also focuses on the modern relevancy of radical work in the late sixties.
In what ways do the giant triplets of evil(poverty, racism, and militarism), as King called them, control our minds, bodies, and communities? How do these systems of violence and oppression interact and support each other? Pretty serious questions for the last day of school right?
Lastly, after talking about local changes students would like to see in their communities, we gave a pitch for this years "Be The Change" youth convergence which is being held in Atlanta July 29-31.
We were all surprised at how interested all the students were, the Grady crowds were all totally interested and many of them registered on the spot! We even were asked for a photo OP with the 9th grade class president.
So we're just that much more excited about this years "Be The Change" youth convergence! Keep in mind that we are totally available to do the presentation, which is about 45 minutes, over the next few months. It's appropriate form high school and college aged folks and can be tweaked for specific audiences.
Wow, I must say that today was an emotional rollercoaster for me. I suppose that I could say that I had almost every emotional response I've ever had from a street action over the years rolled up in one day. The plan for the day was to support the student organizing efforts to counter picket the Westboro Baptist Church at two Atlanta area high schools, Druid Hills and Grady.
The Druid Hills picket was scheduled from 7:40-8:10am, right as students are showing up to school. Several of the students we had been working with had told us that the principle of the school had repeatedly told them that if they were seen joining the counter demonstration that they would be escorted by the police into the school and possibly arrested. I personally spoke with the principle and she confirmed this. My feeling is that her motive was to protect her students from physical and emotional injury but that doesn't justify ignoring their civil liberties, their right to confront the hate that had been brought to their community. Not only does the first amendment extend to public school property, the faculty has no right to attempt to control their students bodies off the school property before classes start.
I was supposed to meet several dozen folks, including members of the press, at the school at 7:30am. Due to the intense traffic created by the police presence I did not get their till almost 8am. Most of the folks I was supposed to meet didn't make it in time. For the sixty of us that did make it we were confronted with perhaps the most unnecessary show of police force that I have ever seen in my life. That's a pretty bold statement for me. I've been to several international demonstrations, Including the G-8 in 2004, where we had tanks and missile launchers roaming through low income neighborhoods.
To protect seven WBC members the police created a free speech zone for counter demonstrators. I spotted dozens of officers in head to toe bullet proof suits, there were machine guns, at least six tears gas machine guns, rubber bullet shot guns, riot shields, all totally inappropriate for something of this size.
For those that braved all those obstacles we did make the best of it. Passers by were all very happy to see the WBC wasn't the only group with a message that day. A jar was passed to raise money for Youth Pride, and students were seen cheering us on from inside their classrooms. As we left several students poked their heads out from their classroom trailers and gave us all a woot-woot.
The next stop was what we had all decided was going to be the finale, Grady High School. One big difference between Grady and the other two high schools was that the Grady students had controlled the conversation about how the campus was going to respond as opposed to the faculty(though faculty did attempt to extend their control beyond legal limits).
Grady student, Becca Daniels, along with several of her peers, had coined the counter demonstration, "Acceptance, Love, Tolerance" or, "ATL". Becca and crew had worked hard to instill a spirit of love and non-violence into the demonstration. They had also done a lot of prep work. Creating stencils for signs and tee shirts, developing a list of organizations to raise money for, and getting permission to use Piedmont park.
I showed up 45 minutes early with banners\signs from the art party that we hosted earlier that week. We also brought big donation buckets and leaflets to pass out to folks who may not understand what was happening or what we were raising money for.
By 3pm there was around 100 people there. By the time Grady High school let out the WBC had set up the picket. Grady faculty attempted to stop their students from leaving the campus but they simply couldn't hold them back. Grady students were going to express themselves regardless of the consequences. By the time 3:30 rolled around there was around 600 people lining the streets with messages of love and tolerance. We had folks walking up and down the crowd selling the shirts the Grady students had made and asking folks to make donations to:
AID Atlanta
www.aidatlanta.org
Jerusalem House
www.jerusalemhouse.org
Rainbow House
www.rainbowhouseinc.org
Grady students were joined by hundreds of other students and community supporters. The crowd got so big that it surged into tenth street, effectively shutting it down at times. When the WBC decided that they had enough and started packing up hundreds followed them to their car to make sure they left. After WBC left it was clear that people were going no where. The Red Dog police unit, infamous for their aggressive behavior towards all things homosexual, made several attempts to clear the crowd. Eventually they claimed that there could be a bomb in the park and that everyone had to leave. The crowd simply decided to take to Monroe and 10th. The crowd of mostly students and some AFSC folks stuck around till almost 7pm.
AFSC really had three goals in mind when we decided to organize around the WBC Atlanta visit. 1. To support youth and encourage youth organizing
2. To create awareness around hate crimes and homophobia
3. To help raise money for the very causes that the WBC objects to.
Seeing things through the lens of our goals I can honestly say that the WBC's visit was a blessing. Not only did we get to see amazing young people, like Becca Daniels and her peers, step and lead their campus, we had the opportunity to lead a workshop on confronting hate at the Horizons school, and create conversations all over the city about the homophobia and intolerance that exists in our community everyday. Groups like the WBC represent the fringes of public opinion in America, but it should be noted that when you take a short walk away from the edges of those fringes we find all kinds of nasty beliefs and fears rooted within our hearts. This week created opportunities to talk about the roots of these beliefs, and perhaps make steps to uproot some of them. We also raised close to $1000. over the course of two days, the final number will be in by this weekend.
Thanks to Horizons school, Grady Students and Countless others Atlanta truly did confront hate with Love, and If you ask me, Atlanta won:)
This morning some of us were still unsure whether or not the infamous Westboro Baptist Church would actually show up in Atlanta. We had heard that they often promote visits that they end up not turning out for. I honestly had sort of hoped that they wouldn't show. A small group of us gathered at AFSC this morning. Before we left there was a brief discussion about how we would react to when we actually came face to face with signs that said, "God Hates Fags". Though there had been extensive discussion on the dynamics of the Westboro cult, and there was a general conscientious that many in the group were actually victims, there was still a knowledge amongst our group that some might have difficulty containing emotional responses to the hateful messages.
At 9:45am we received confirmation that WBC was on their way to their first target in Atlanta, the Marriott. They were planning to protest a Jewish Convention. When we showed up, they were there. We weren't the only counter demonstrators. There we two young Jewish men from a group called PunkTorah and several Veterans. As we stood there holding our love promoting signs and passing out leaflets I couldn't help but feel baffled at how this group could have such conviction about their hate. It was clear that this was a highly disciplined group that goes to great efforts to get their message out, which is basically, "God hates us all and we're going to hell".
The Leaflets we passed out to folks gave a brief explanation of what the WBC is, but more importantly it talked about confronting hate with love. The leaflet asked those that were upset with the WBC(which was pretty much everyone) to contribute to one of three organizations that are doing important work in Atlanta:
Aid Atlanta www.aidatlanta.org
Jerusalem House www.jerusalemhouse.org
Rainbow House www.rainbowhouseinc.org
Hopefully by this weekend we'll have an idea about how much money the WBC visit ended up raising for these important organizations.
We ended up following the WBC to Douglas High School. The WBC had planned to picket the school right as class let out for the day. When we showed up it was clear that the faculty had gone to very far lengths to limit the WBC's access to their students, it was rather impressive actually.
We were all glad that we had devoted the day to counter the WBC's presence at Douglas. The faces on parents and community members as they passed the WBC was one of shock. There were multiple folks that did several drive byes. Parents and folks in the neighborhood really appreciated our presence.
So tomorrow is the big day and we're all looking forward to celebrating love and diversity with Grady students and others at Piedmont Park 3-4:30pm. You're invited!
LOVE, Tim Franzen American Freinds Service Committee
For those of you who haven't heard of them, the Westboro Baptist Church(WBC) consists mainly of Fred Phelp's(the churches minister) descendants. The Church gained notoriety in the early 90's when they began to picket the funerals of AIDS victims with signs that said, "GOD HATES FAGS" and, "THANK GAD FOR AIDS". Since then it seems the Church is always looking for new ways to warn folks, outside their own family, that we are all hated by God and definitely going to hell.
In the last few years they have picketed other Churches, the funerals of fallen Iraq/Afghanistan soldiers, and Jewish cultural events. Their main theme appears to be that America's acceptance of homosexuality is the root of all the evils in the world. In countless interview members of the Phelps family admit that they believe that members of the Westboro Baptist Church are the only ones in the world going to heaven, everyone else goes to hell.
Late last week AFSC became aware that the WBC was coming to Atlanta to picket various locations over the course of two days. We may have decided to simply ignore the news except for one troubling new development we noticed. This time they were picketing High Schools. Everyone in the office agreed that we had to at least warn schools and look into ways to support student organizers that were perhaps already preparing for the WBC picket.
We decided to hold a city wide meeting for youth and youth allies to explore the city wide reaction to the WBC pickets. The meeting was to be held at the Horizon School gym. Faculty at the school requested that AFSC come the morning before the city wide meeting and talk with their high school class about effective was to confront hate and intolerance in their community. We decided to show the school the short BBC documentary, "The Most Hated Family in America" which chronicled the Phelps familiy and other WBC members. After the film we processed students feelings about the film and facilitated a thirty minute discussion about how to affectively confront hate without giving into it yourself.
That evening we greeted over 50 participants from all over the city that had come to discuss their feeling about the WBC's visit and create a strategy to counter their presence. The overwhelming sentiment in the room was that folks wanted to find ways to spin the WBC's hateful message into something that could be positive. How could we use the WBC's visit to raise money for the very groups that they hate? How can we use their visit to cultivate new progressive youth groups that would continue to be active long after the WBC left? These questions and more we explored during the meeting.
Everyone was especially impressed with the student lead organizing work that had gone into the Grady high school counter demonstration. Several Gardy students stood up and gave a report on how they planned to respond to the WBC picketing their school. They basically decided to have a big love fest on the other side of their campus while the WBC held their signs for no one to see. Grady students decided to use the opportunity to launch a new student lead organization call, "Acceptance, Tolerance, Love", or "ATL". At their event, which will take place May 6th from 3:15-4:15 they will be raising money for AID Atlanta and the Rainbow house. Free hugs will be given and, along with good vibes.
So as a group we decided to hold similar expressions of love and tolerance in front of other high schools, and venues that the WBC plans to target next week. Students at the Horizon School plan to be a part of our caravan. The final finale for the to day WBC caravan will be at Grady. We invite you all to join us!
Link to facebook Grady event info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=116139308404489#!/event.php?eid=116139308404489&ref=ts
Link to the BBC documentary: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-most-hated-family-in-america/
Link to art party this Sunday where folks will be creating banners: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=117236568299474&ref=ts
