Many may have heard about the neo-Nazi group that marched down Constitution Avenue to the Capitol in Washington DC on April 19 as part of an anti-immigration march. I was there, along with all of my usual protest buddies, counter-protesting this march. Of course, I was half figuring that these Nazi whack-jobs wouldn’t even show up, a la July 4 last year, when we showed up ready for action, and they didn’t.
But show they did, and we were ready. We gathered at 14th and Constitution waiting for them, and things got interesting when two members of the Nazi group showed up near the Washington Monument. Three of our people were arrested after someone attacked the Nazis with a banner. Then things slowed down for a while. It ultimately picked up again when the Nazis got started. These white-supremacist nutjobs were outnumbered by police officers protecting them from us, and then we, counter-demonstrating them, also outnumbered them.
Marching to the Capitol, we marched outside the police lines, primarily on the sidewalk, attempting to drown out the Nazis’ message. When they got to the Capitol, they took the center part of the west lawn, and we were in the south part of it. While they gave their speeches, we played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have a Dream speech over a bullhorn. Hopefully we got our message across that racists are not welcome in our city.
Most disturbing, though, was seeing a very young child in the group. The child was wearing a red t-shirt with a swastika on it:
A child that young being taught such principles is something that I and many others found rather disturbing. We hope there’s still a chance that this child will turn out okay, though, once it ages a bit and begins to rebel against its parents.
There’s probably going to be a photo set about this event, but right now, I’m a bit backlogged…