Walking the Peace Path

I went for a walk last Saturday (September 11) along the “peace path.” I walked from
ML King Boulevard along Pratt street To President Street. I arrived at 2:30 and meandered about
until 5:30. Most of the people I encountered were scurrying to the ball game, and a surprising
number were wearing Yankee uniform shirts and looking rather dour. The locals seemed a
cheery lot but, generally speaking, the baseball fans diverted their eyes from the people and signs
of protest. One young couple looked confused: “Peace?” I overheard one ask the other,“what’s
it all about.”

There was no one at King & Pratt as I parked. (I was told that they came later.) As I
walked I came to the normally busy intersection of Pratt & Greene. On the northeast corner were
two women dressed in black. One lone driver honked at them. On the other side, three
demonstrators sat silently (disconsolately?) While two teenaged women chatted away while
holding their peace signs aloft. This was their first peace path.

I went for a walk last Saturday along the peace path. By the time I arrived at Paca, the
crowd had picked up considerably. Mainly stadium traffic, there were stalwart protestors I
recognized–a lone member of CAGE (Coalition Against Global Exploitation) and three NOW
activists a half block away. I asked one of the “old timers” why she was back on the Path. “It
didn’t occur to me not to come back,” she said. I like to give my flyers to cab drivers, she told
me. They are from third world countries and they seem more concerned about the war.

Eutaw Street seemed populated with vendors of ball game souvenirs
and more raucous baseball fans. I moved on. As I ambled towards Howard St., I encountered
what to me represented the prototypic disengaged demonstrators–five women in black, two of
whom holding signs stared out almost blankly at the passing cars, one of whom was reading a
book, while the other two, standing nose to nose, were deeply engaged in conversation. I
thought, you call this a demonstration?

I went for a walk last Saturday along the “peace path. There was the Communist Party
handing out their newspaper, while across the street an old time Trotskyist activist was
haranguing a Catholic sister for Peace. At Howard, I encountered a large contingent from the
Womens International League for Peace and Freedom most of whom had walked the peace paths
of the last two years. “Why are you back?” I asked them. Their replies were quick: “still
needed,” “to honor the dead, all of those who died in violence.”

I kept walking past the large contingent at Harborplace. I thought I would check out the
far end of the path. The path was there, but the people weren’t–two men had started packing up
as I went by. That was it.

I walked back to Harborplace. It was now about 4:15. The peace protestors there were
spirited; they seem to gain more energy with the honking of passing cars . While one well-
known Baltimore activist seemed excited by the event and its response another came up to me
while I was making notes in my pad. “Get this,” he half yelled at me, “the organizers knew they
didn’t have enough people to cover the path. They should have changed it. This is
embarrassing.”

My walk was over and I stayed for another hour talking with my friends and with people I
didn’t really know but recognized from other events. I met some people I didn’t know before,
and I brushed up on the latest peace movement gossip . I couldn’t help but think that this
socializing and networking was the major consequence of all this, at least this demonstration.
But I also couldn’t help but wonder if all of the time and peoplepower that went into it couldn’t
have been better used.

I went for a walk last Saturday along the peace path. It was a nice day for a walk.

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