W. Thomas
June 5, 1982
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
