The Gray Activists

In her novel, The Dispossessed, Ursula Leguin reminds the reader that unless the past and future are made part of the present by memory and intention then there is no way to go. The youth of the demonstrators over the weekend made the visibility of the gray-haired even more obvious. We spoke with some of the older participants asking them why they have persisted over the years and how they felt about the age of the majority of protestors.

Dick Ochs, a retired movement printer from Baltimore, has been going to Washington demonstrations since 1963. "I don't think I will ever get tired of going to national demonstrations," he said. "It's always a morale builder. It's exciting to see all these young people." He noted that "For many years I was demoralized, but now seeing even high school kids here I am heartened."

"I haven't talked much to people with purple hair or nose rings," Ochs admitted,"but you know they are holding the same signs I'm holding."

From New York City, Irving Riskin, 84 years-old, also told of how he was encouraged by "the kids. They are the hope." As a long-time union organizer--he was organizing in the days of the CIO--he was disappointed at the absence of a clear union presence. That wasn't his only disappointment. He was concerned with the small representation of African and Arab Americans and a bit wistful over the absence of those of his generation.

We talked to union activists, Mike Berry and Kay Moffat on the march, asking them where was the older generation. "Too much focused on money issues" was the immediate reply. "If an issue doesn't immediately affect them, they don't show much care." Why were they here?

Berry responded: "I've been a labor unionist for 30 ears.I'm president of Communication Workers of America Local 201 in Charleston, West Virginia. We were here in April 2000 for the Jubilee protest on April 9 to cancel Third World debt, the lobby day against China's entry into the World Trade Organization, and the protests against the IMF and World Bank on April 16. We're here today because we fear the policies of the IMF and World Bank could starve too many people of the world to death."

We asked about what had happened to the coalition of the labor and global justice movement that was present during the earlier protests against the WTO. Berry said, "I believe the split is temporary. It has more to do with the complicated situation in the Middle East than with
September 11. The global justice movement and the labor movement can reconnect, and I believe they will for the longer term."

Will Burbank and Alex Hilchuk came in from Ithaca, New York, a small progressive college town. Burbank declared, "I have been coming to these rallies, as many as I could, since Dr.Spock was arrested." (Spock, the famous pediatrician and author of childcare manuals, was
arrested in 1965 for committing civil disobedience at a Washington demonstration.)

"I'm really angry," Alex said vehemently. I'm angry that there are not 5 million people here today. I am depressed by the Left." (The estimate was about 5, 000.) While he was encouraged by "their striving," Alex felt that today's young people did not know how to fight and were often disdainful of the democratic process going off in weird destructive ways."

With a large shock of white hair and mien familiar to the antiwar activists of the Vietnam period, John Judge was rushing off to unfurl a banner when we stopped him. We asked what kept him going. "I have to do what I have to do," he replied. "It is my moral imperative." As for a generation gap, he felt that we have not been talking together sufficiently, though he felt that may be changing. "Itis not necessary for every generation to reinvent the wheel."

He thought that the kids today had grown up disenfranchised and out of touch with the real world. They share a "common cynicism" that has kept them from meaningful action, but "more and more are starting to wake up."