Journey for Justice Makes Stop in Washington
DC
Sanho Tree and Kevin Zeese report
Friends,
The Journey came to DC today and we had a
wonderful demonstration at the White House. Some photos are attached.
Feel free to circulate and use them for your publications. The
dummies in white show the politicians and their loved ones who
have used drugs without going to prison while the other figurines
show the faces of the not so famous who are condemned to
long sentences. The subtext of all of this
is: If these lawmakers think a good stiff prison would not have
helped them in their lives, why is it such a good thing for all
these other people? Congrats to November Coalition and Common
Sense for pulling this together!
-Sanho
**************************************************************
Sanho Tree
202/234-9382 ext. 266 (voice)
Fellow, Drug Policy Project 202/387-7915
(fax)
Institute for Policy Studies 202/494-8004
(mobile)
733 15th St., NW,
#1020 email:
stree@igc.org
Washington, DC
20005
http://www.ips-dc.org
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The first event of the Journey for Justice
in DC was a success --
approximately 45 demonstrators attended the White House event
at 12:30PM
today. Brief remarks were made by a half dozen family members
of people
incarcerated as well as leaders of DC-based reform groups. Medill
and
Conus News Services attended, these are services that provide
video to
local news broadcasts around the US (local news is where most
people get
their news from according to surveys), a television network from
Colombia also filmed the event and interviewed participants, United
Press International (UPI) was among the other media attendees.
The main visuals at the White House event
were twenty cardboard
caricatures. Four were of President Bush and Clinton, Vice President
Gore and Speaker Gingrich including their facial image and descriptions
of their drug use. Six cut-outs included descriptions of 12 children
of
politicians (each side of the cut-out covered one child) describing
their drug use and the very light sentences they received. Ten
cut-outs
were made to portray the real prison system -- six were black,
two were
brown and two were white -- each contained a host of facts about
the
drug war and the face of a real drug war prisoner. A large banner
proclaiming that the drug war = racism + hypocrisy was held in
front of
the demonstration (with the White House behind us). Attached are
the
materials on which we based these caricatures so you can use them
as
displays in the future. When photos are avialable on the November
Coalition website we will let you know.
Tonight the Journey for Justice will meet
DC reform activists at an
event at the office of Common Sense; tomorrow they will be having
meetings with November Coalition activists and a candlelight vigil;
on
Sunday they will be at a Unitarian Church in Maryland.
Kevin Zeese
Common Sense for Drug Policy
Attachment:
http://www.drugsense.org/temp/TVXcamerasXwithXdummies.JPG
Attachment:
http://www.drugsense.org/temp/WakeXupXcallXtoXGeorge.JPG
Attachment:
http://www.drugsense.org/temp/NoraX.JPG
Attachment:
http://www.drugsense.org/temp/PolsXvs.XPeople.JPG
Attachment:
http://www.drugsense.org/temp/ShawnXwithXHypocriteXT-shirt.JPG
Attachment:
http://www.drugsense.org/temp/ThoseXsmirkingXPols.JPG
