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Photos by Burnley Duke Dame
CBID MARCHES AGAINST THE WAR
On February 15 about
25 members of CBID marched together and carried our banner in the
huge anti-war demonstration in Manhattan.
MAYOR STIFLED PROTEST
Our Republican mayor initially tried to deny a march permit, and then wanted to make the organizers pay for the costs of policing the rally. His Police Dept. finally granted a rally permit for First Ave. & East 49th St., several blocks north of UN Plaza, where the organizers had wanted to rally. The Police planned on a crowd of about 100,000, were not adequately prepared for the numbers who actually appeared, and then finally estimated the crowd at 100,000.
CROWDS JAMMED THE AVENUES
The crowd on First Ave. backed up about a mile to the lower East 70s. Access to First Ave. through the side streets was for the most part blocked. There must have been at least several hundred thousand marchers. Most of the marchers were bottled up on Second and Third Avenues, far from the site of the rally. The Police funnelled us northwards up the avenues to some ever-receding point in the East 70s where we might purportedly be permitted to walk over to First Ave.
ROUGH AND TOUGH POLICE TACTICS
While individual Police officers were approachable, Police phalanxes pushed and shoved the marchers, who filled the avenues, onto sidewalks, where they were packed tightly together. Also, mounted Police rode through the crowd. The Mayor and his Police Commissioner effectively denied the right of citizens to petition for a redress of grievances.
CBID CONTINGENT
The CBID
contingent joined the march at about East 42nd St. and
Lexington Ave. The avenues were crowded and the Police tactics of
forcing marchers to the sidewalks and cutting off entire blocks made it
difficult to keep us all together.
A Police horse pressed against a Club member who
was not easily intimidated. He would have fallen over had not the other
demonstrators been so tightly packed around him. He and several other
CBID members finally made it to First Ave. Most of us made
it to Second Ave. & East 57th St. While most marchers
never got close enough to hear the speakers, our numbers made a
point.
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