By Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement
OSHKOSH, WISCONSIN AUGUST 17, 2020 — A diverse crowd of people’s fighters from across Wisconsin rallied and marched here to protest the racist, anti-worker bigot and war criminal Donald Trump.
Assembling in a parking lot, protesters gathered and then marched through the neighborhood near where Trump spoke.
A participant describes the scene of the march:
“Trump supporters today threatened us with weapons, stalked us with vehicles and drove aggressively through the crowd, followed us with giant graphic photos of dead fetuses, showed up with a loudspeaker to attempt to derail our speeches by yelling “Black lives don’t matter.” They called Black marchers the n-word, harassed people for gender presentation and used degrading and explicit terms to scream about people’s genitals and LGBTQ+ status. They also followed us the entire march heckling people and making threats. Didn’t stop us. Won’t stop us,” said Mary B of the Food Not Bombs Appleton Chapter.”
The Green Bay chapter of Voces de la Frontera along with United Action Oshkosh, the African People’s Socialist Party, the Coalition to March on the DNC, Wisconsin FRSO, Our Wisconsin Revolution and Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement helped organize the protest actions.
“Trump’s recent attacks on the essential postal office workers are obviously an attack on our communities and our people, to prevent people from voting,” said Danielle Gutierrez, DACA recipient and member of the Voces de la Frontera relational voter program Vocero por el Voto, in a news release. “This dismantling of the post office is a sign of his inability to see the reality that he is not above the law. We must hold him accountable for his actions.”
Gutierrez was one of numerous speakers to address protesters.
A wide range of people’s demands were put forth on signs, banners and from speakers at a street rally. These included: An end to police murders/terror, a moratorium on evictions, foreclosures and utility shutoffs, an end to all attacks on migrants and the undocumented, an end to attacks on women and LGBTQ people, an end to environmental destruction and money for people’s needs such as public education, housing and union jobs not jails, cops, bank bailouts and war. Information about upcoming events was shared including a August 20 Coalition to March on the DNC protest in Milwaukee, an MLK/BLM Event and Protest in Appleton August 30 and a United Black Lives 4th Annual Celebration & Education Supplies Drive Event in Green Bay August 30. (Information on these events are posted to this blog, type in the city in the search engine: https://wibailoutpeople.org/)
The Oshkosh anti-Trump protest is a part of the growing Black Lives Matter related events sweeping across Wisconsin this summer, most led by youth and students. Besides the police murders of Black, Brown, Indigenous and poor white workers in the state, in the past decade Wall Street forces (especially the bankers) and their political servants – has pummeled the poor and working people of Wisconsin with unrelenting anti-worker racist austerity. Despite this, the people are in motion in the thousands across the state fighting back against the cruelty and barbarity of the capitalist system – especially during the present COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of protests have taken place across the state since the police murder of George Floyd including in the Fox Valley (Fon du Lac, Oshkosh, Appleton), Waupaca and in numerous other cities in Northeastern Wisconsin and beyond.
Be the first to comment