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September 12, 2003
Two Years On
On September 10, 2003 I had the honor of marching with September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Ground Zero for Peace, and many of their supporters in New York City. We walked from Union Square to "Ground Zero", where a vigil was held in remembrance of those who died there two years ago.
Megan Bartlett, founder of Ground Zero for Peace invited me to the event. We met up at the Square. She had been on Democracy Now earlier in the day. That was just one of twenty interviews she had on the 10th. She limited the 11th to four more. Megan was an EMT who responded at Ground Zero on 9-11. Her descriptions of the hell that she saw are deeply moving. Megan and the other rescue workers who are Ground Zero for Peace have, like Peaceful Tomorrows, called for nonviolent responses to the attacks. Their courage and dedication is amazing.
I did quite a bit of videotaping. One moment in particular stands out for me. When we arrived at Ground Zero, someone up in the front of the procession held up his hand, giving the peace sign and standing in silence. Little by little, most people did the same, ranging as far back into the crowd as I could see.
Thursday morning I checked online for press coverage of the march and vigil. It seemed that the press was substantial at Union Square, all along the march, and at Ground Zero. As far as the print media that I found, Reuters threw a couple of mischaracterizations into their article. They said that "hundreds" of people turned out. I'm no expert on judging the size of crowds, but I am confident that we were into the thousands, not just hundreds. Reuters also characterized the point of the march and vigil as being primarily to protest building on the site. While there were a few people who focused on that issue, the overwhelming purpose was a message of peace, consistent with the motives of the two groups that were the main organizers. Newsday said there was "more than 1,000". NYC Indy Media just had a very small piece on its site, and said nothing about numbers.
Before I left NYC, Megan gave me a copy of a new book about Peaceful Tomorrows. It's called "September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows: Turning Our Grief Into Action for Peace".
Back in Portsmouth, NH where I live, I arrived in time to join the two hour vigil and speak-out in Market Square. I told folks about the march and vigil in NYC, and showed them the Peaceful Tomorrows book. Just as I was finishing, a very drunk young man came up and started telling us what he thought. He said he had been to Iraq twice, loading the huge guns on war ships. He said he didn't know how many Iraqis he had killed. He said he couldn't understand what we were thinking, calling for peace and referring to war as terrorism. His angry, racist, repetitious talk was peppered with profanity-- sometime every other word. Such a contrast to what I had just seen in New York. For a few moments much of the hope that had been fostered by Peaceful Tomorrows and Ground Zero for Peace was washed away. But now it's back. I'm reading the Peaceful Tomorrows book.
Posted by Joe Public at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)