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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums32-Year Vigil in Front of the White House Informs and Inspires Generations
Last edited Sat May 4, 2013, 10:35 AM - Edit history (1)
Connie Picciotto has kept vigil near the White House for 32 years. Why, and at what cost?
____ The historic vigil began officially on June 3, 1981, when Connie joined William Thomas, a protester who had positioned himself outside the White House gates with a hand-lettered sign: Wanted Wisdom and Honesty.
Connie, a former embassy secretary in New York who was working as a part-time nanny for a local family, had come to Washington to plead for the governments help with a family crisis. Thomas (he was known to everyone by his last name) was a self-described philosopher, a wanderer who had dropped out of high school, pilgrimaged overseas and held odd jobs in New York and New Jersey before winding up in Washington . . .
She sat down beside him. Within hours, they were arrested for illegally camping in Lafayette Square. When they were released, Thomas told her, Since we are both seeking peace and justice, we should become a team. So they did.
William Thomas in 2006. (Kevin Clark)
Connie had read about nuclear issues and had been horrified by photographs of the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. She adopted Thomass message as her own: They were pro-peace, anti-nuclear proliferation and anti-government deception. They dedicated their lives to their cause, which mostly meant that they would sit across the street from one of the most powerful buildings in the free world and talk to the visitors who came by, hand out literature and display their signs. They would do this night and day, in freezing cold and scorching heat, through rains that soaked their clothes and winds that scattered their pamphlets across the pavement. They had only their flimsy umbrella-shelter for protection; actual tents had been banned in the park___
Connie and Thomas believed that changing even a handful of minds through their signs, their words was enough. Their endurance alone would be a powerful testament, an ever-present symbol of the need for change . . .
read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/05/02/connie-picciotto-has-kept-vigil-near-the-white-house-for-32-years-why-and-at-what-cost/?tid=ts_carousel
Connie in her basement apartment at Peace House. (Bill OLeary)
( . . . I was just a naive and idealistic teen when I first saw Connie out in front of the WH waking up protestors who, at that time, had their protest signs arranged as a lean-to shelter against the White House gates - offering them coffee and food that she had brought. I was in awe of this incredible lady then; in awe of her throughout every WH protest that I bothered to go down and attend; and very proud to see her still standing there. Thanks, Connie, for all you do!)
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32-Year Vigil in Front of the White House Informs and Inspires Generations (Original Post)
bigtree
May 2013
OP
gopiscrap
(23,761 posts)1. I love this
what a commitment and what a witness to our naton!!
senseandsensibility
(17,066 posts)2. Such dedication to a cause is a beautiful thing.
I hope that Connie and Thomas have enlightened some of the people who see them.
Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)3. Your link is not working for some reason
But I found the full story. Here is a direct link to the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/05/02/connie-picciotto-has-kept-vigil-near-the-white-house-for-32-years-why-and-at-what-cost/?tid=ts_carousel
It's a long article and I couldn't read all of it but I actually teared up reading some of it.
bigtree
(85,998 posts)4. thanks
lol
bigtree
(85,998 posts)5. it is a long article, and she really deserves one
. . . if only for the thought process that she inspires in the visiting folks who have encountered her there over the years.
More than that, she's a dedicated and tireless caretaker and mentor for so many of the folks who live, primarily, on the streets surrounding the White House and other government buildings. I think I know these folks as well as anyone can. They are an intellectual bunch; sometimes bordering on dangerousness, but, never threatening to anyone more than to themselves. I remember taking my young son to see Bill Clinton jogging in front of the WH before he was elected. There was a familiar collection of folks sharing the same shelter from a brief morning shower underneath an pavilion canopy. There was a lively conversation going on about how many days each of them had gone without a meal. the consensus was that they'd all been neglected since their respective releases from the local jail, where they said they'd deliberately gotten arrested to get some food and shelter. Who knows the truth behind it all? I've shared slugs of whiskey from a bottle with a few and tall tales are their specialty, but the conversation that morning was both softened for the ears of my young son and was only a small portrait of the desperation, despair, and degradation of their plights on the D.C. streets. Folks similar to these were eager participants in Connie's vigils and protests when I visited back in the '70's. Loyal subjects of a living saint. The rest of us, who come and go, are just fireflies who light up briefly and are gone again. Connie remains. That's more amazing to me than I can express. I may well have grown past the point where I'll be sharing that park wall overnight with the drummers and the faithful, but, my heart is full of what this lady has conjured with her dedicated activism.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)6. she inspires in the visiting folks who have encountered her there over the years.........yes
I was glad my kids got to meet her and talk to her when in DC
. . . inspiring!
..
Thank you bigtree.
Tour guides point out the vigil to visitors. Educators use it in lessons about social activism. It has appeared in Michael Moores controversial 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11, a slew of local newspaper stories, a documentary titled The Oracles of Pennsylvania Avenue.
I will have to read the rest after work, but didn't want to go before I gave it a recommend!
sheshe2