I don’t seem to be able to post info about our rallies on Facebook anymore it seems that telling people the truth about what’s going on in this country is no longer being permitted – I’m being censored.
I saw the notice for the Close the Camps protest being organized by Move-On.org on Facebook to be held at Sen. Lindsey Graham’s office in Mt. Pleasant, SC. There were going to be 150 different protest nationwide. As an experienced protester – I was in. And, I’m sure some of my fellow Tuesday Group (TG) resistors would be there too, especially when I saw Rita (a TG leader) put out the notice on several other Facebook pages. I posted the notice on my page too. We were familiar with the location as we spent about a year protesting there until Graham went off the deep end for Trump.
On my drive to Mt. Pleasant I passed this sign for Kamala Harris on Hwy. 52 on a white picket fence just outside of Moncks Corner. My wife had seen it the day before, but I missed it as I was driving, but I saw it today. And, so it begins – the political season is here. I took the photo of the sign on my way back home. There’s a lot of symbolism in this photo.
The first people on site in Mt. Pleasant were Chip and Joan and myself (all Tuesday groupers) then the rally organizer showed up. We knew to get there early as parking and shade is in short supply at this location. And as it got closer to noon more folks showed up. It didn’t take long to realize that this was going to be a bigger than usual rally. This issue of how children and adults were being treated in detention camps along our border with Mexico is a hot one in America – at least with people who care. No reason to go over that today again – it’s all over the news and it’s disgraceful.
You’ll be able to see from the photos below that the crowd just kept getting bigger and bigger. Eventually the crowd filled the entire front of the building Graham’s office is in and had to go further down the street. At one point I counted 110 people, but I knew before it was over at least 120 were there. When I left after 1pm when the rally was called – people were still driving up or looking for a parking space.
The talk in the crowd was that this was an amazing turnout for Charleston. It’s Tuesday at noon on a work day and during vacation season. Most people only heard about the rally at the last minute and some joined up after driving by. Charleston! What we have here is a failure to communicate! That’s from the “Cool Hand Luke” movie, but it’s very true in the Charleston area. There is no central place where people can find out about political events taking place in the greater Charleston area. Not everyone is on Facebook or Twitter or a member of a political organization. And, many groups don’t communicate with each other. But, people want to know when something like this gets called. We have to get better organized.
All three TV stations had people on site for this rally, some were there before the crowd was. The Mt. Pleasant Police were there keeping people from hanging out in the road and getting run over. They have always been very helpful to us in the past and were again today. I didn’t see any of the TV coverage but I heard the rally was well covered on all stations. But, I did hear on the drive home on NPR that there were 300 people at the protest in Austin, TX. Just 300 in one of the biggest states and in a state where most of these bad camps are located. We had 120 at the rally in Mt. Pleasant – way to go Charleston.
That’s enough said – you had to be there to get the real feeling of this protest. The photos will speak for themselves, except I will give a few descriptions. One – my hats off to the young gal who put herself in a cage and stayed in that cage during the whole protest. That’s being committed to a cause. And then there is the 14 year old who took the mike (provided by Rita and the Tuesday Group) who said she had been protesting since before she was born as her Mother would be protesting when she was pregnant with her. Then there is the photo of the proud Mother watching her 14 year old daughter speaking up at a protest. From another song, “Teach your children well…”. You did good Mom. And the last photo is of Joan’s sign which she made for one of our protest from about a year ago when this first started. The signs speaks for most of us – it’s the message most of our ancestors saw when they first came to America.
More protests about these detention camps are planned: One on Fri, July 12 at 8:30pm – Lights for Liberty — Riverfront Park in N. Charleston, SC, 1001 Everglades Drive (on the old Navy base). “A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps, will bring thousands of Americans to detention camps across the country, into the streets and into their own front yards, to protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees.” There will also be a Lights for Liberty event in Hutchinson Square in Summerville, SC, on the evening of Friday, July 12th at 8:30pm. Check around to see if one of these Lights For Liberty events will be taking place in your town or city. Get involved and tell our government that We the People don’t support this treatment of children or anyone.
