Peace signs prominent in KC march
Hundreds in march for 27
RICHARD LOUV
Kansan Staff Writer
It was a field day for the patriots. They called themselves patriots, singing "America the
of windows and waved at the marchers who were chanting, "Free the 27." They passed a billboard advertisement for America, "the promised land."
Then they began to sing "We Shall Overcome." An old man
Photo by Mike Frederick
Iowa farm boy and dog
Brian Bauerle, Harlan, Iowa, junior (center), his dog, and students from KU and other area colleges approach the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City during a march in support of the "Presidio 27." The march began at the Federal Building.
stepped out of a bar. "Looks like a red-neck," someone said. But the old man raised his fingers high in a peace sign, and then turned and yelled inside the door, "Come on out Earl. There's people marching."
Another man shook his head and mimicked the words of the song, then frowned and went back inside the bar.
People rolled down their car windows to take leaflets telling about the Presidio 27. A crippled man in a motorized wheelchair watched from the other side of a bridge, stared at his hands for a moment, then accelerated the machine and followed the parade.
The marchers passed the Kansas City Star building and chanted, "Free the 27; take notes Star."
Up the long hill to Liberty Memorial. A television cameraman appeared on a high wall. "If my father sees me on television I don't get any more money," someone said, and the people laughed.
The bell tolled
As they trudged around a long curve in the sun, a bell tolled somewhere. The marchers silenced themselves and someone smiled and said, "The Liberty Bell, it's the Liberty Bell." The group was quiet for a few moments, and then they hit the stretch of grass in front of the memorial, and some took off their shoes and walked in the grass. They began to laugh again.
"Three years ago in this town we would have been yelled at the whole distance. Cars would have honked at us all the way up the hill." Barrish said, "but things are changing. This country is turning around."
Photo by Mike Frederick
'We are the real Americans'
The demonstrators carried an American flag with them on their march through downtown Kansas City. This view was taken from behind the flag toward the leaders of the group.
The protesters settled themselves on the stairs around the memorial as two of the marchers carefully folded the American flag they had carried. The man in the electric wheelchair stopped on the outskirts of the group and listened.
Then it was over. The people began to separate, leaving in cars, or walking back down the long hill to where the march began, many blocks away. The man in the wheelchair was dodging the cars, making his way down the street, away from the Liberty Memorial.
Beautiful," and the saddest song of all. "We Shall Overcome."
They sang and marched and sweat their way up the Kansas City street Saturday afternoon toward Liberty Memorial. There they would protest the sentencing of 27 prisoners of the Presidio Stockade who were tried for mutiny after the prisoners staged a sitdown strike. The strike had followed the killing of a prisoner.
Mostly students and teachers from KU and St. Mary College in Leavenworth, the group totaled only about three hundred persons, far short of the thousand that leaders had estimated.
At the beginning of the march the crowd was uneasy. It had only been a few months since a few of the group had marched in Leavenworth, where at least four of the Presidio 27 are now imprisoned. In that march, the people lining the streets had barrassed the protesters.
March on the street
"No. March on the street. Stay away from the pedestrians," he said. The uneasiness remained as the marchers began their long walk along 13th Street, below the tallest city hall in the world, from which they had obtained a parade permit.
Someone asked Jay Barrish, Lawrence graduate student, if the marchers could walk on the sidewalk instead of the street, since there were so few present.
People in passing cars smiled and waved peace signs at the marchers, and after a while the marchers themselves began to have a good time.
They found the reaction to be different from what they expected.
No one was there to line the streets, but spectators hung out
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