Ed Tant
People’s Bicentennial brings political fireworks to Washington on July 4, 1976
Thousands of Americans rallied in Washington, DC during the nation’s 200th anniversary on July 4, 1976. The People’s Bicentennial organized and educated around issues like the growing power of multinational corporations and governmental corruption in the post-Watergate era. Thirty years later, the concerns voiced by the People’s Bicentennial still resonate.
New York: Peace rally, 1982
Great Atlanta Pot Festival, 1992
Militarism was on the minds of many in 1999, and protests took place at Fort Benning, GA (above) and outside the Pentagon (right) in that year. The annual protest in Georgia at the School of the Americas training facility is attended by thousands each year who carry crosses commemorating the dead and imprisoned in Latin America who were victims of the school’s military graduates. At the Pentagon near Washington in 1999, a young man used street theatre to question the Clinton administration’s bombing of Yugoslavia.
New York’s streets were clogged with nearly a million peace marchers in 1982. In Atlanta in 1992, thousands rallied for reform of marijuana laws.
Chicago: Counter-convention in Windy City challenges Democrats’ big bash
Photo by The Unknown Tourist
Chicago Seven defendant and longtime activist Dave Dellinger spoke through a bullhorn at a nighttime march through the Windy City (left) and posed with his grandson Seth on the city’s streeets during protests outside the Democratic National Convention in 1996. Dellinger was an organizer of antiwar protests against the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968. In the center photo, I’m at the gravesite of the Chicago Haymarket anarchist martyrs who were hanged in the city in 1887.
Washington, DC: July 4, 1997
Activist Dave Dellinger and historian Howard Zinn at a 1997 Washington birthday party for Ron Kovic, author of “Born on the Fourth of July.” The same weekend, a festive mood also prevailed at the annual July 4 hemp rally in Washington.
School of Americas rally draws crowd in Georgia
Pentagon march, 1999
