"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
Kevin's published convention '08 coverage
- Conservative Panelists Debate the Future of the Conservative Movement: The Capitol Times
- Amid the Chaos, An Oasis of Artful Calm: Politics in Minnesota
- Trouble in the Streets--Maybe: Politics in Minnesota
- Are Conventions Still Relevant? Well, Maybe: Capitol Report
- How a Longtime Minneapolis Mayor Helped Reshape the National Democratic Party: Capitol Report
- Newspapers Scale Back Convention Coverage. Can Online Fill the Void?: Capitol Report
The RNC--Day One Protests
A Photographic Essay
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Posted 2:21 a.m., Sept. 6, 2008
Before the storm: A young couple strolls the grounds of the State Capitol in St. Paul on Sept. 1, about half an hour before a scheduled march on downtown St. Paul on the first day of the Republican National Convention.
In case anyone forgot to bring one of their own, someone left this pile of protest signs laying on the ground near a podium where a series of speakers addressed the crowd just before the march left for downtown St. Paul on Sept. 1. Pick your cause, I guess. Signs along the way carried slogans like, "GOP: Anti-Union; Anti-American"; "Bush-Cheney: Send Your Daughters!"; and "The Republican Party is a Criminal Enterprise." Obviously, they're just trying to start a civil dialogue...
Private First Class Ian Lavalle, a former member of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division and current member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War, is interviewed prior to Monday's march by a member of the Japanese press. Lavalle, who is no longer in the military, called for "complete and immediate withdrawal" of U.S. forces from Iraq.
A protester posing as an Abu Ghraib detainee stands before a flagged-draped coffin during the Sept. 1 protest. The Minnesota State Capitol is in the background.
Texans Vincent Campo, left, and his friend, Republican Delegate Scott Barber, appeared at the pre-march demonstration Sept. 1 with their Barry Goldwater pins and convention credentials. "We want to let everyone out here know that, yes, it's possible to be a Republican and oppose the war at the same time," Barber said. "Political party has nothing to do with being a human being."
Members of the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, a New York City-based "radical marching band" that exists "in order to further progressive and radical groups and causes," prepare to perform "Bella Ciao," the theme of Italy's anti-fascist leftist movement during World War II.
The trouble starts. A group of anarchists rush across John Ireland Boulevard several blocks southwest of the State Capitol on Sept. 1. The small group, presumably an "affinity group" that split off from their peers to confuse the police response, rushed around aimlessly for several minutes before departing together farther south--away from the main body of the march. I heard someone call this group "The Black Bloc."
Anarchists comprising part of the so-called "RNC Welcoming Committee" march down John Ireland Boulevard. A policeman walks beside them. Police cars also trailed them at a slight distance. This picture was taken moments before the image that follows.
Anarchists overturn a dumpster on John Ireland Boulevard southwest of the State Capitol, leaving garbage in the street. The group pushed the dumpster down the street for a while, but then abandoned it. Reports later in the day indicated that, elsewhere, others in the RNC Welcoming Committee lit a dumpster on fire, pushing it into a squad car.
Militant protesters smashed the window out of this Minnesota State Patrol car in perhaps the first of several such incidents that occurred over the course of the first day of the RNC. "Certainly, your First Amendment doesn't include that," a Philadelphia cop said after the incident.
A phalanx of police in riot gear begins to move in on militant protesters, apparently with the intent of driving them back toward the main arm of the protest march, which at the moment this photo was taken was several blocks away, moving down Cedar Avenue toward downtown St. Paul.
Mounted police, at ease near the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul, await the arrival of the first of the protest marchers.
This group, at 7th Street and Wabasha in downtown St. Paul, represents what St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington later referred to as "the real protesters," peaceful--but perturbed--citizens exercising their First Amendment rights on Sept. 1 to protest the Republican Convention. One night later, this same location would be the scene of an intense clash between riot police and militant demonstrators.
I see you, you see me. At the demonstration's closest approach to the Xcel arena where the RNC was taking place, a police officer shoots video of me shooting pictures of him. Despite their intimidating appearance, the cops were uniformly friendly to me. On the last night of the convention, however, a number of journalists were swept up in a police action and arrested. I was not present that night.
Police in riot gear block off a street along the protest parade route in downtown St. Paul. I promise you, these guys were not sympathetic to your need to get around them to go find a restroom. You weren't getting around them.
Some of the estimated 10,000 protesters cross Cedar Avenue as they march past the Minnesota Public Radio building in downtown St. Paul. Note that some people line the streets, sitting in the grass or leaning on buildings, as though watching a July 4th parade move past. Shortly after this image was taken, anarchists smashed the windows out of a nearby Macy's department store and damaged more vehicles. Before the RNC ended Thursday, police would make some 800 arrests, including dozens of journalists. But not me. I left the scene after taking this picture from an overlooking skyway.
-- Kevin Featherly
