3,000 TAKE TO THE STREETS FOR SNYDER
MOURNERS HOLD PARADE, PROTEST AT DISTRICT BUILDING
By Marcia Slacum Greene and Keith Harriston
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 11, 1990
; Page D01
Even in death, Mitch Snyder created a scene.
The advocate for the homeless who irritated people into action during his
life drew a crowd of 3,000 people -- the homeless, everyday folks, politicians
and actors -- to his funeral yesterday in front of the District shelter he
fought to create.
Then Snyder -- a pine box for his coffin -- was carried down Pennsylvania
Avenue in a horse-drawn hearse, the main attraction in a procession led by a
riderless white horse that symbolized a fallen soldier. The hearse was
followed by hundreds of supporters singing "Down By the River Side" and "We
Shall Overcome."
The procession ended at the District Building, where activists for the
homeless rallied against the D.C. Council's decision to weaken the overnight
shelter law that Snyder had struggled to implement. In the end, Snyder's
supporters staged a sit-in at the District Building and 37 of them were
arrested for unlawful entry.
Sixty demonstrators had blocked the entrances to the building and demanded
a meeting with the D.C. Council. Carol Fennelly, Snyder's longtime companion
and right-hand in past protests, paced the hall in her stocking feet and
smiled.
"Mitch wanted his funeral to have some political significance," she said.
"Mitch would have wanted this."
Snyder, an advocate for the homeless since the 1970s who staged dramatic
protests that won him national recognition, was found dead at the Community
for Creative Non-Violence shelter at Second and D streets NW last week after
he hanged himself. He left a suicide note lamenting a failed romance with
Fennelly.
Snyder's use of hunger strikes as one of his chief methods of protest had
left him near death several times, so he had planned bits of his funeral
during the last 10 years, Fennelly said.
Yesterday, many of the speakers at Snyder's two-hour funeral were there at
his request.
As the Imani Temple choir began the ceremony by singing "We're climbing up
the rough side of the mountain," hundreds in the audience waved white
carnations in the air, swayed in their seats and sobbed.
But the somber moments soon turned into thunderous applause, cheers and
sometimes laughter as one speaker after another urged the crowd to celebrate
Snyder's life rather than mourn his death.
When Jesse L. Jackson, who presided over the funeral, asked members of the
audience to hug one other and applaud over and over for Snyder's struggle and
his determination, homeless people embraced college students wearing designer
shirts and dark-suited Judiciary Square office workers.
And when Bishop George Augustus Stallings Jr. began a prayer, they all
locked hands.
One by one, those whom Snyder had wanted to speak at his funeral said their
farewell. Martin Sheen, the actor who portrayed Snyder in a television movie
about his life, said Snyder was following the simple command of Isaiah to
"feed the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the homeless."
Sheen was followed by the Rev. Phillip Berrigan, the antiwar activist;
singer-actress Cher; and Karen Saunders, a homeless woman who said that no one
could deny the impact that Snyder had on the homeless and the nation.
Fennelly introduced D.C. Mayor Marion Barry as someone who had many
differences with Snyder but was always there for Snyder when the chips were
down. Barry noted that tombstones list the date of a man's birth and death
with a dash in between. How that dash is filled in is how a man should be
judged, he said.
"We can decide what we're going to do with that dash," said Barry. "As we
celebrate his home-going, let us rededicate ourselves to the proposition that
we are all God's children and that none of us should suffer without food and
clothing."
Much of comedian-activist Dick Gregory's comments were tinged with
political observations.
In a reference to the Hubble Space Telescope, Gregory said, "We got a damn
space thing up there that we spent $1.5 billion for -- a telescope that
couldn't see poor folks and racism and hunger. But Mitch could."
Gregory also said that he could sense that Snyder was on the edge and
called him a soldier who had been worn down on the front line and had no place
to go.
At one point, Gregory called Fennelly to his side and said, in a reference
to the suicide note that Snyder left: "I don't know what was in that damn
note. Don't let him blame that on you . . . . We men get out here and we get
caught up in this struggle . . . and we get so weak sometimes we look for
people to blame it on, and sometimes we blame it on our friend."
During those comments, the crowd applauded and gave Fennelly a standing
ovation.
The procession from the shelter to the District Building started about 2
p.m. It stretched out for two blocks. As the two massive horses pulling the
hearse trudged along Pennsylvania Avenue NW, three drummers from Shaw Junior
High School, clad in the school band's green and gold uniforms, kept time for
the procession.
Traffic in the eastbound lane continued to move but was stopped on side
streets to let the procession pass. From the sidewalks, some looked bewildered
at the crowd. Others explained to companions by simply whispering "Mitch
Snyder."
As the carriage reached Ninth Street, an apparently homeless man who had
been lying on a shaded bench in front of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building
stood and stared at the procession. When it had passed, he packed a few
belongings in a small box, folded a dingy blanket and followed.
When the procession arrived at the District Building, Snyder's body was
taken away for cremation. Newspaper publisher Calvin Rolark led the crowd in a
chant of "Don't be mean, we want 17," a reference to the D.C. Council's recent
vote to roll back the initiative, which guaranteed shelter for anyone in the
District
And there was a steady, determined movement toward the east entrance of the
District Building.
Jackson, who had been leading the services and the march, cautioned the
crowd to "be peaceful" as the throng made its way toward helmeted police
officers blocking the doorway.
Eventually, Fennelly went inside the District Building to pick up a
ceremonial resolution honoring Snyder for his work. But by the time she had
convinced City Administrator Carol B. Thompson to allow 100 members of the
group to attend a council session, the meeting had ended.
The group inside, many of them members of CCNV, blocked the doorways to the
building.
As the number of police officers on the ground floor swelled, demonstrators
ran up and down the steps and blocked a basement exit. As about 10
demonstrators ran past him on the first floor at 4:45 p.m., Council Secretary
Russell Smith picked up a phone and said, "Tell the sergeant they have lost
control of the District Building."
As District Building workers tried to leave, they argued and got into
shoving matches with demonstrators who chanted "sit down." At one point, 10
police officers grabbed four demonstrators who blocked a back exit and threw
them into the hallway.
Demonstrator Lin Romano, surveying the scene inside the District Building,
said, "A lot of people have been longing for the time to be able to seize some
power. This is where Mitch would have been."
Staff writers Molly Sinclair, Carlos Sanchez and Daniel H. Pink contributed
to this report.
Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington
Post and may not include subsequent corrections.
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