At least 10,000 protesters from around the country converged on John Marshall Park in Washington, DC, on January 20 bringing a powerful antiwar message to the presidential inauguration of George Bush. The first thing that Bush saw as the presidential motorcade began the parade route was antiwar protesters lined 10 deep along the side walks and anti-war bleachers.

Atop the bleachers was a giant banner that read, “Iraq is Bush's Vietnam, Bring the Troops Home Now”. It was the first time in inaugural history that the antiwar movement was able to have bleachers, a stage, and a sound system for a mass antiwar demonstration right on the parade route.

Although the parade route filled up with anti-Bush demonstrators, many thousands more protesters were stopped at security checkpoints and not allowed into the rally. People held spontaneous demonstrations at the checkpoints, chanting and holding banners.

Our partial victory in attaining a space for a mass assembly protest along the inaugural parade route was the result of a year-long political and legal struggle. Attorneys from the Partnership for Civil Justice and the National Lawyers Guild filed litigation that played a vital role.

Speakers included former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark; Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg, a citizen killed in Iraq; ANSWER {Act Now to Stop War and End Racism] national coordinator Brian Becker; John Boyd of the National Black Farmers Association; and Sue Neiderer, mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq.

January 20 antiwar protests were also held in other cities throughout the United States, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Austin, New Orleans, Albuquerque, Atlanta and Phoenix.

At the rally in Washington, organisers from 30 cities took the platform to announce their plans to organise local antiwar demonstrations on March 19, the second anniversary of the start of the US “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq.

[Abridged from <http://www.internationalanswer.org>/]

From Green Left Weekly, January 26, 2005.
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