The Coalition to Protest at the DNC held its first press conference on
January 18 in Charlotte outside of the Time Warner Cable Arena, where the
Democratic National Convention will be held September 3-6. More than three
dozen organizations, including labor, anti-war, civil rights, anti-foreclosure,
immigrants rights, student and youth groups, and many prominent movement
activists have joined together to initiate a coalition that, among other
things, calls for:
- Good jobs for all! Economic justice now — Make the banks and
corporations pay for their crisis!
- Money for education, health care, housing and all human needs, not for war
and incarceration!
- Justice for immigrants and all oppressed peoples! Stop the raids and
deportations!
John Heuer, a board member of NC Peace Action and a member of the Eisenhower
chapter of Veterans for Peace, opened the press conference by saying, “it
is my pleasure that on this week, which honors one of our greatest US heroes,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that I announce the launch of a coalition of more
than 30 peace, justice, and community organizations who are coming together to
raises their grievances and protest at the Democratic National Convention in
Charlotte in September of this year.”
Ayende Alcala, with Occupy Charlotte, affirmed that they would be working to
plan and build for actions during the DNC next September, and drew comparisons
between the Occupy movement today and Dr. King's organizing for a massive
occupation of DC to demand jobs and justice at the time of his
assassination.
Efia Nwangaza, Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination
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“We're here to demand an end to the war on Black people, here and
in Africa—from police brutality and mass incarceration, to AFRICOM and
proxy wars across the African continent,” said speaker Efia Nwangaza,
founder and director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination. Nwangaza
continued, slamming the Democratic Party for their “silence on the
depression level African American unemployment,” for taking no action to
stop racist predatory lending and home foreclosures, and for the continued
imprisonment of political prisoners.
Organizers with the Coalition call Charlotte, NC the "Wall Street of
the South." With the world headquarters of Bank of America and the eastern
headquarters of Wells Fargo, it has the second largest concentration of finance
capital in the U.S. behind New York City. Both banks are notorious for
foreclosing homes, holding huge amounts of student loans, bankrolling the
prison industrial complex, and funding environmental destruction, among many
other crimes against our communities, as noted by Molly Shannon who spoke on
behalf of MortgageFraud in North Carolina.
North Carolina is also the least unionized state in the country, with a Jim
Crow-era law still on the books that bans public workers from collectively
bargaining. Many southern states have right-to-work, anti-worker laws on the
books. City workers in Charlotte have been fighting for years just to win the
basic right of dues deduction.
Donna Dewitt, President of SC AFL-CIO
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Donna Dewitt, president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, raised this issue and
spoke about why workers should be mobilizing to protest at the DNC.
“Located in the Deep South of historical struggles for civil, worker,
immigrant and human rights, North Carolina, like other Southern states,
continues the competition to underbid other Southern states to attract
corporations that locate to the South for lower wages and exploitation of
workers...Elected officials of both major parties have followed the practices
of the corporate world in their bid to protect the rich and deny the
working families of our country.”
Luis Rodriguez, a local activist and proponent of fair lending practices,
spoke strongly about the need for individuals to be included, those who've
been left out of the political and social conversation. He called for greater
outreach to the folks who have been directly impacted by this system.
Ana Maria Reichenbach, an organizer with the UNC Chapel Hill chapter of
Students for a Democratic Society, gave a spirited talk that called on young
people to come to Charlotte this September. “Working class youth of this
country find our prospects of attending a higher education diminished as
tuition continues to rise, we're forced to go deeper into debt with student
loans, unemployment rates are soaring and those jobs available fail to provide
us with living wages... We are rising up, because we have the right to a
dignified life and because we refuse to be a lost generation of jobless,
uneducated people. We are rising up because this two party system has failed to
meet our needs.”
On Monday, January 23, the City of Charlotte passed restrictive new
ordinances to regulate political demonstrations, modeled after regulations
passed prior to the DNC in Denver in 2008. They have already denied permit
requests submitted by the Coalition to Protest at the DNC and informed
organizers that the DNC has reserved every park in the city the weeks prior to,
during, and following the convention.
Isaac Sturgill with the North Carolina Chapter of the National Lawyers
Guild, spoke about the ordinances, which at the time of the press conference
had not yet been passed. He said the NLG will be keeping an eye on what the
City of Charlotte does in the coming weeks, and will work with the Coalition
and other groups to take appropriate legal action to protect protestors’
rights. Coalition organizers have vowed to challenge the City for the right to
protest in the time, place, and manner of its choosing.
The ordinances contain a provision that retroactively make it illegal to
camp on city property, which is a direct attack on Occupy Charlotte. The City
of Charlotte set the eviction date for Occupy Charlotte on Monday, January 30,
one week after the ordinances were passed. Occupy Charlotte put out a call for
folks to come and help defend the occupation. After many hours standing off
with the cops and holding their ground, more than 30 Charlotte cops swept
through and dismantled the camp shortly before 3pm on January 30. Seven people
were arrested. Occupy Charlotte has vowed to continue to fight the City of
Charlotte's ordinances and to keep organizing.
Already, organizations and Occupy movements across the country are making
plans to mobilize to be in the streets of Charlotte during the DNC. For more
information on the Coalition to Protest at the DNC and to find out how your
organization can join, please visit http://protestdnc.org.
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