Stateside With Rosalea Barker
Pre-Convention Day
Today’s Sunday, August 24, the day when media picked up their credentials, and there was an anti-war rally and march
timed to coincide with the official kickoff of the Convention. Many other events were scheduled by groups taking
advantage of the presence of all the Democratic delegates in town. I went to the most important one. Here are some
images of the day.
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Actually, this is the Colorado State Capitol on Saturday evening, but it was also the starting point of the antiwar
rally and march on Sunday. Colorado became a state in 1861.
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Signs waiting to be carried in the march. The rally and march got a lot of press coverage.
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The only rally speech I heard was the first one, from a member of Recreate68, which is frowned upon by many in the
antiwar movement because of its stated mission to recreate the disruptions that occurred at the 1968 convention in
Chicago.
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The Democratic National Convention Co-Chairs [LtoR]: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and Texas State Senator Leticia Van de Putte at the press conference held on Sunday
morning to kick off the convention.
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Media interest in what led to the U.S. having a government that went to war is shamefully nonexistent, so a consortium
of voting rights groups held a press conference at the Denver Press Club in the early afternoon to launch their Election
Protection Media Kit. One of the speakers was Martha Tierney (above), an attorney specializing in election law and
counsel for the Colorado Democratic Party .
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How to become an instant superstar! As the antiwar marchers returned through downtown Denver’s 16th Street Mall, this
gentleman on a side street called out, “Give me a sign!” A protestor obliged, and within seconds Floyd was being
high-fived by passersby and interviewed by the media.
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In anticipation of things getting a little ugly as the protestors moved further up the Mall, several SWAT teams swept up
17th Street to intercept them.
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--PEACE--