2016DNC | St. Pete for Peace

2016DNC

Great experience at the DNC!

July 24 - 26, 2016

SEE SOME PHOTOS BELOW and ALL THE PHOTOS ON FACEBOOK

Nine people from St. Pete for Peace attended the first couple days of protests at the DNC. Here are some of our observations:

On our way to Philadelphia we visited the neighborhood where Freddie Gray was murdered in Baltimore. The murals we saw fired us up!
There were about 9000 people at the climate march on Sunday where we marched with a banner that said "Bombs Kill Mother Nature".
There were about 4000 people at the March for Our Lives on Monday, where we carried banners saying "A Vote for Hillary is a Vote for War" and "Hey Hillary: First rule of "all lives matter" is don't bomb people. So shut up".
All of our banners received a very, very positive response. In fact, a number of people said our banners were the best they'd seen!
We didn't see many, if any, Hillary supporters in the marches.
Virtually no anarchists, Black Lives Matter or LGBTQ activists were in the actions in which we participated. There were a large number of people with antiwar messages.
Bernie Sanders supporters were by far the largest contingent we saw. They were very passionate, and about every Sanders supporter we spoke with insisted there is NO chance they will vote for Clinton. Indeed, a few Sanders delegates said they are abandoning the Democratic party and may vote for Donald Trump - that's how much anger there was towards the DNC.
One Clinton delegate (Shemia Fagan from Oregon) said "burn the tires" when asked what she thought about Democrats bombing Muslims overseas.
Compared to other conventions, the cops were less militarized and much less hostile.
"Hell no DNC, we won't vote for Hillary" and "Jill not Hill" were two of the more popular chants by Sanders supporters.
One of our members saying "Frack Hillary" while handing out the Hillary flyer was met with much enthusiasm.
We made sure that many delegates got a copy of our Hillary flyer in their hotel rooms...
Here's an RT article talking about some of the antiwar protesters, including when we stood in front of the convention center chanting antiwar slogans and distributing flyers to delegates entering the building.
Fortunately we were not at the march where the organizers were saying, “I need all white people to move to the back. This is a black and brown resistance march. You will not have a say all up in here...Take your rightful position and get behind us. If you see any white folks, direct them to the back of the crowd.”