March 20th Reportback

author: Bash

The student movement lives!

Todays walkout/protest for students was the most high spirited and most energized protest I've ever been to. 1500/2000 students walked out of school today in Portland, to show Oregon and the world that the student movement does have a voice and a loud one as well.

At 7:50 AM, several members of students for social justice and I passed out hundreds of fliers about the protest, as we had been doing all week. Word was getting around quickly at Wilson high school, and soon everyone was debating whether or not they were walking out. In our daily bulletin it read something along the lines of, "Students will not be excused by walking out, you are still skipping school, and you will fail any tests missed." A desperate threat, but not the worst of that day. The majority of seniors and juniors had previously announced that they had planned to walk out. Ironically, in English class we were discussing Malcolm X's radical approach to the movement just before the walkout. At 10:55 as students were glaring at the clocks anticipating walking out, the school administration pulled a daring move. They had conveniently planned a fire drill five minutes before the walk-out to throw it off. As confused students spilled out to the court yard, it only worked to our advantage. Hundreds of students joined hands to form a giant peace sign, standing in the circle of dirt left from last years senior prank of making a giant peace sign with flowers. Students were directed to the bus stops, and many drove, some even walked downtown. Three buses were crammed full of kids leaving Hillsdale.

As we arrived to the elephant at North Park Blocks, over a thousand high school students were already lining the sidewalks giving peace signs to cars passing by. As more and more students flooded in, we began doing speeches atop a trash can. Students talked about the costs of war, and I mentioned the corporate influence on the war as well as the growing student movement. We began the march shortly afterwards, and it seemed as if the police were giving us a break by not dividing the march every stop sign. Students chanted "No War," "Not Our President, Not our War," "Peace Now," and my favorite "The students united will never be defeated." We convened again at the South Park blocks where it began to rain. The number of police grew from about 8 cops to over 25. M cleverly told the crowd to repeat after him, as we had no sound devices. He discussed the human casualties of war followed by an influential chant.

The march was then guided to city hall where the energy of the crowd heightened. Speeches were made about how money is being taken away from schools to directly fund the war. We demanded that all recruiters leave from public high schools, and that more money should go to fund teachers and education. Some students scaled a city hall wall and stood up on a side of the building. The chants got louder and the energy seemed to escalate even more when Tom Potter came outside. We asked him "Tom Potter, what are you doing to end the war?" to which he replied "We support you!" He talked quietly accompanied by his representatives on a megaphone. He seemed to support what we were doing but didn't stay to answer what he was doing about recruiters in our schools.

After many enthusiastic chants, we realized that Wells Fargo was right next door. Wells Fargo uses money citizens put in their bank to invest in war profiteering and perpetuating businesses. We demanded that their administrator come down and explain himself, but no one ever came down. We remained at Wells Fargo as M did a speech about the corporations funding the war.

Students began chanting Pioneer Square, and pretty soon the entire group started marching there. Police tried to divide us at every single cross street. It began as simply blocking us off when the light turned red, but pretty soon the police were not letting us march on the sidewalks altogether. I asked a cop, "Why are you doing this, you are just trying to incite something and make arrests, you are being unruly." The police officer just laughed at me. I said "this is just empowering the students to take the streets you know." To which he replied "Ha, you can't take the streets." Five minutes later we were blocking three lanes of traffic marching down towards Pioneer Square. The police seemed stunned that we would pull it off. They had weak strategy, and were poorly organized that day. The crowd began to explode with cheers. The feeling of power and justice took over the crowd. We went into the square chanting more anti-war protest chants. We learned that three people were ticketed for being in the street and we all pooled together to cover their ticket.

With the feeling of empowerment still motivating us, we marched down Yamhill St, arm in arm, blocking traffic. Many media channels showed up at this point to document us. We walked to the waterfront where we made a human peace sign for the news helicopter overhead. Are next destination was PSU, where we could have an open discussion about uniting the student movement. As we walked on the sidewalks, M was arrested for absolutely no reason. A cop had made an attempt to arrest me sometime earlier for my connection to the protest when I was simply on the sidewalk as well. Students chanted "Let him go!" but instead of letting him go, the cops just shoved protesters with their bikes. An officer was waving around a can of pepper spray as two other students were arrested. There was no explanation as to why these students were being arrested, in my opinion, the police were just sore about being outwitted and overpowered.

The march ended at PSU, where people read poetry and explained their opinion of the war. Altogether, it was the most effective, energized, and downright the best protest I've ever been to! The student movement is alive and loud in Portland, it's just taken us four years to organize it.

We will be planning another walk out sometime soon. But in the meantime, solidarity to you all!

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20.Mar.2008 20:58

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March 20th Reportback

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