Radical Anti-Capitalist Feeder March . WDC . Saturday, 26 October 2002
Elvert Xavier Barnes Protest Photography & Writings on the Wall
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After about 15 minutes the 'Shirts Off Our Backs' feeder march would resume its trek to Constitution Gardens. We continued down 15th to H Street veering onto Vermont Avenue where I noticed that the huge American flag that had hung above the VA HQ entranceway during ANSWER's October 2001 'Stop the War and End Racism' March still graced its facade. As we marched by I wondered if it had ever been cleaned. Or replaced. Since each time that I had walked by since 9/11 it, or one just like it, had always been there ... blowing in the wind.
As we turned onto H Street and headed west several more would 'take their shirts off' who along with a group of anarchists in red shirts, black knee-high socks and black skirts the jubilant crowd made noise and danced in the streets, chanted and shouted. As we passed the IMF-WB complex at 19/Pennsylvnaia Avenue one man began to chant "Fuck the World Bank, Fuck the World Bank!". I wasn't too sure, at first, what he'd said but, then, the crowd joined in.
"Fuck the World Bank. Fuck the World Bank!.' I felt torn. But as a black man of Native American descent while I now find it difficult to trust or bel;ieve what white folks 'be chantin''' I knew just what Ali, the black man, "be shoutin' about!. And as we marched toward Constituton Avenue we could see and hear that the A.N.S.W.E.R Rally was a massive crowd. And loud.
Ramsey Clark would began speaking by talking about "The Lies". And when Patti Smith spoke and then chanted "We Got the Power" I remembered Robert Mapplethorpe who on many occasions had had indepth discussions with me on the very issues that the anti-global community now 'be protestin' about' and pertaining to my experiences as a black man ... saying on the morning after the 1987 Saint Black Party that 'years from now you'll come to realize that you were 'just their nigger'". If only I had known then what I know now!
