LOVE AND PROTEST

It's lonely to be a voice crying in the wilderness. Ask any crusader. But when there are two voices crying in the wilderness right next to one another - and not speaking to each other - what gives?

The two voices in question belong to Concepcion Picciotto and Ellen Thomas, both of whom maintain a plethora of gigantic protest signs that are usually propped up across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park. Both are self-described anti- nuclear zealots. Both are in constant battle with local and federal police agencies that have tried to move them.

But they do not speak to each other, and the reason, it seems, is a man named William Thomas. Thomas, as he is known to friends, had helped tend Picciotto's protest signs for three years, until Ellen, a secretary for the U.S. Park Service, came along last spring. They fell in love, married and set up their own set of protest signs, just down the street from Picciotto's. "Until she came, Thomas was serious about the vigil," Picciotto said yesterday from her spot, which along with the Thomases' was moved to the other side of the park six weeks ago to accomodate inaugural activities. "Now I'm afraid he is just here for the lark,like her."

"She is very territorial," said Ellen Thomas. "I never meant to compete with her. I wanted to join them but she wouldn't have anything to do with me."

William Thomas tries to maintain some distance from the dispute. "Connie is a very dedicated woman. and I respect her a great deal," he said. "I helped her out for a while, but since Connie stopped talking to Ellen, I stopped talking to Connie."

Said Picciotto: "I wouldn't be surprised if they are both CIA agents."

Paul Vitello

Inaugural Articles - 1997 - 1993 - 1989 - 1985 - 1981 -

January 1997

In case you're looking for us (White House Peace Vigil - Peace Park anti-nuclear vigil - and friends) our signs have been moved across Lafayette Park to H Street, as has happened every four years since the vigil began in June, 1981.

Meanwhile a dozen large mobile homes rest on the grass of the southern half of Lafayette Park for the construction crews' comfort. Police patrol regularly, in part to make sure no homeless people crawl under the empty trailers in the icy dark of night. The bricks where office workers and tourists usually walk have been torn up, and huge - ugly - three-story bleachers rise in the space where our vigil normally stands, along the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue, so the press -- for one afternoon -- may stay warm and dry and near bathrooms while President Clinton has his second inaugural parade. The bathrooms on the north side of the park are locked, though construction workers again (as in past years) have for their use several porta-johns which are locked at night. Fences of every variety are intricately laid out to block demonstrators into the northeast corner of the park during the Big Event.

Ronald Reagan tried to have a second inaugural parade but it was so cold Inauguration Day 1985, the president had to call it off, and the quarter-million-dollar bleachers went unused. We were shivering and dancing in the northeast quadrant of the park, giving credit to God for a good sense of humor.

The vigil began five months after Reagan's first inauguration. At that time, people were allowed to demonstrate on the White House sidewalk. After a campaign by the Washington Times in 1983, new regulations were written banishing the vigil to Lafayette Park. During the wee hours of the morning, when tourists weren't about, police hovered and often arrested the vigilers. Department of Interior lawyers wrote a "camping" regulation which was used to criminalize (see CCNV case, U.S. Supreme Court, 1984) what was formerly protected behavior (see Abney case, U.S. Court of Appeals, 1976).

Since there are private citizens who insist on paying for this desecration of Lafayette Park every four years (via the Inaugural Committee), we're stuck with the bleachers again this year. So I'm writing President Clinton asking him, as I asked President Reagan in 1985, at least to leave the bleachers up for the rest of the winter, for homeless people to get out of the cold, wet, snowy, icy streets. I'm not asking for us -- we will remain at our signs with the minimal amount of protection necessary to survive. We are asking on behalf of the homeless sleeping on the DC streets (in spite of police harassment) ... still, after all these years.

Ellen Thomas
PEACE PARK ANTINUCLEAR VIGIL
PO Box 27217, Washington, DC 20038 USA
202-462-0757
prop1@prop1.org

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