Looking back at the IMF/World Bank rally in D.C. in April, I am struck by the amount of love, commitment and cooperation involved in the whole event. Thousands upon thousands gathered from the far reaches of the continent to register their dissatisfaction with the current economic model and to renew their vow of creating an economy that fosters equity and justice. They came armed with knowledge of the issues and left having educated and inspired multitudes more to join them. It was powerful to watch as this conviction lead thousands to put their lives on the line in a statement of their commitment to a better world. Over 1,300 were arrested and 160 others like myself chose to spend a week jail to maintain solidarity with those who were at risk of receiving heavier sentences. The organization of these events took place not through a hierarchical structure of designated leaders, but through an organic consensus process which used collective knowledge to come up with creative solutions that were agreeable to everyone.

When I arrived on Friday with a car full of Charlottesville high school students, people had already been working for months to prepare for our arrival. Our first stop was the Convergence Space which was bustling with hundreds of youth from all over the Country attending non-violence and legal training’s, making puppets, preparing food and so on. On the other side of town, the more well dressed middle aged folks were attending a teach-in by the International Forum on Globalization; a group of well known authors, scholars and long time critics of the global economy. This inspiring event featured such characters as Ralph Nader, Jerry Mander, and Vandana Shiva. That evening I reunited with many friends from around the Country and prepared for the days ahead.

Saturday consisted of a myriad of meetings and small actions. While marching with about 1000 others for the freedom of Mumia Abu Jamal and for an end to the prison industrial complex, we nearly got caught up in a massive unprovoked arrest. After walking for over an hour without blocking traffic we quickly found ourselves trapped between two police blockades. My friends and I slipped out the side and later found that 600 of the had been arrested. This kept us on our toes for the following day.

Sunday drew the largest numbers. The city prepared by closing over 100 blocks to cars and closing two subway stops. Thousands formed a human chain spanning four city blocks surrounding the IMF and World Bank buildings. The hardiest activists locked down to the ground or to each other blocking each intersection to traffic. Others circled the radius drumming, dancing, cheerleading and carrying huge signs and puppets. Thousands more attended a permitted rally where they listened to speakers and up-beat musicians. The events culminated in a joint march which flooded the streets with songs and chanting. We hadn’t stopped the meetings, but we had delayed them and turned many delegates away. Some delegates had been bussed in at 4 am and still others spent the night on the floor of the World Bank office to avoid us entirely. That evening a consensus meeting of 700 people ( representing over 2000) talked well into the night. The general sentiment was that with now fewer people our goal should be to educate people about why we had come rather than attempting to stop the meetings.

A few thousand gathered Monday morning in the pouring rain. We drummed, chanted, and engaged the media in meaningful dialogue ( little of which was reported ). When we arrived at police barricade nearest to the IMF and World Bank buildings, we were greeted by the chief of police, many large vehicles, members of the national guard and hundreds of police officers. The people up front spoke our message which was repeated by the crowd. In effect, we explained that inside those buildings, meetings were taking place that would impact millions of lives and the future of the planet , yet there were certain things that weren’t being represented. As activists, we are the delegates for those things. We are the delegates for the environmental protection. We are the delegates for human rights and fair labor. We are the delegates for social justice and racial equality. We are the delegates for clean air and clean water. We are the delegates for indigenous sovereignty. And we are the delegates for true democracy. As delegates, we requested the opportunity to go in and represent these important issues that were being neglected in the IMF/World Bank bi-annual meeting.

Of course Chief Ramsey denied this request, so a few activists proceeded across the police barricade anyway. This resulted in the first and only use of police weapons that I witnessed personally. They sprayed pepper spray into the crowd once. We coughed into our vinegar covered handkerchiefs for a minute or two and it was over. The people in the very front got direct hits which stung for hours. The media found a way to spend hours talking about this and other such squabbles without ever really mentioning the true reasons why we were there. I wiggled my way through the dozens of TV cameras and chatted with a woman from the Washington Post as we watched Chief Ramsey negotiate a deal with our spokes people. An hour later the police barricade was opened and we were allowed to walk peacefully in rows of ten toward the IMF and World Bank buildings. Over 800 people consciously crossed the line in this way and were immediately arrested.

We were put in plastic cuffs, separated by gender, and bussed to a gymnasium to be processed. It was approximately noon. It had been pouring all morning and we were drenched from head to toe. They took our photo’s, finger prints and belonging ( including shoe laces) and gave us each a number. I was Jane Doe 283-961. The process was slow. Those who had been pepper sprayed directly were allowed to hose off with cold water and were given plastic yellow suits to wear. The rest of us remained in our cold wet clothes. Hours later we were loaded back into busses and taken to the District Court where we met the U.S. Martials. Unlike the primarily African American police officers who were kind and mostly on our side, the U.S. Martials were all white, angry, fond of intimidation, and ran the place like a boot camp. Anyone who deviated from their way of doing things paid for it. They took us upstairs and put all 20 women from my bus in a cold concrete floored cell and finally removed our cuffs. There were 2 women with us that I had known previously, and I felt glad to have them nearby. We stayed there with little water, no food and no blankets until well into the night. We sang many songs, cuddled for warmth, talked, and waved to other protesters who were being escorted in or out. There were 3 people in the group who were hypoglycemic, and we eventually got them a couple crackers to share. Various lawyers came by saying that the Court had appointed them and they represented some or all of us. Some of them were helpful and told the truth, others weren’t. The lawyers from the Midnight Special Law Collective who had been leading legal training’s all week and who we wanted to represent us were outside the building trying to get in. At around 4:30 am we were taken individually to court and given the choice to accept a charge of incommoding ( blocking traffic) $50 or crossing a police barricade $100, agree to pay, set a court date, give our names and be released; or to maintain solidarity and go to jail. The majority of the people in my cell had agreed to do solidarity, but we had no way of knowing how many others of the 800 arrested would choose to stay and whether or not we would have the leverage in numbers to ensure identical reduced charges for everyone. I chose to stay. From court we were put in metal shackles around our ankles, wrists and wastes and made to wait for another 5-6 hours before going to jail. We sang some more and tried to sleep. Some people from our cell never arrived and we learned later that they had been "no papered" and allowed to leave free of charge along with many others who they didn’t have time to process. Tuesday mid-morning we were finally taken to jail. There we were re-processed, re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, re-numbered and finally fed, showered, given dry clothes and given cells with beds.

We stayed there until early Saturday morning. We were allowed out to meet as a group several times a day and were treated well. The vegetarian meal requests take 2 weeks to process in the D.C. jail, so we picked through what we could of their food which was prepared to meet standards 2 grades below that of Mc Donald’s. A typical meal was mashed potatoes, meat sauce, 2 slices of bread, over-boiled carrots and 0% fruit juice. Breakfast was served between 4 and 5 am. Without windows it hardly mattered if it was day or night. We were in single or double cells, so I was alone much of the time. We sang with the people across the hall from us through the cracks in our cell doors. We were in a separate section of the jail from the other inmates and only saw the other areas when we were taken to the medical facility or to have our fingerprints retaken. I got do this often. In my week there I only saw one (non-activist) white inmate. The vast majority were black. They let us out into a common area for meetings, and phone calls once or twice a day. Our meetings were an amazing education in leadership, and group consensus process. I was glad to have the opportunity to facilitate some of these meetings. The highlight of our time was a Passover Sadder brought to us by the Jews for Justice in D.C. A woman Rabbi led the service and brought with her a version of the Passover story that was written with the current global situation in mind and which showed how similar our struggle was to the one the Jews faced for the freedom of their oppressed peoples.

Friday night we heard that our negotiations had been completed and that many of our demands had been met. We were required to give a name, however our charges were reduced to jay walking and our fine was five dollars each. Our Midnight Special lawyers (who had already been working pro-bono for us all week) agreed to pay this for us. Although only 160 of us remained in jail, this deal was retroactive to all those who had been arrested over the weekend and had given their names and been released with a court date. This count totaled over 500 people. On Saturday morning when we were released, we were given an amazing reception of food , song, and cheers from about 150 people. Many had been camping out outside the jail all week long. Many of my friends were there. They smothered me in love and hugs and drove me home. What we experienced was educational and sometimes harsh yet it is important to remember that what "happened" to us, is only the tiniest taste of the injustices which are felt daily by the poorest 80% on the planet. Through high interest loans and crippling debt, institutions like the IMF and the World Bank are ensuring that the global gap between rich and poor widens each day. In order for struggling developing nations to qualify for these loans they are required to implement structural adjustment programs which reduce taxes on imports and exports, weaken labor and environmental standards, reduce government spending on social services like education and health care, and focus production on the export of raw resources; all of this, for the benefit of transnational corporations. Meanwhile, in this country one in 3 black boys born this year will spend time in jail. Many of these boys will be required to work 23 cents an hour for phone companies and clothing manufacturers who capitalize on this cheap labor.

The media claims that what we are fighting for is petty and that those involved have a simplistic view of the reality of global economics compared to the sixties when protesters were informed. The truth is that corporate globalization is complex and challenging to explain in a 10 second sound bite, however, the issues we are dealing with are all encompassing and we know them in and out. These issues are not new. For decades our mentors in this movement have been writing speaking and organizing to slow the progress of free trade and the global economy. These people are graduates and
professors of such institutions as Harvard, Yale and Stanford. They are scholars, writers, economists and former employees of the World Bank. Now, the youth are rising up, riding on the inspiration of these scholars and bringing these issues into the public light. Seattle and A16 were just the tip of the iceberg. In August we will be at the Democratic Convention in LA. You’ll see us at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia July 31-Aug 3 and even larger numbers will be at the annual IMF/World Bank meeting in Prague in September. This is the beginning of a massive mobilization for global justice. We are here. We are positive, energetic, non-violent, highly educated and we are ready to represent the interests of those who the global elite’s have left behind. We are here to represent the millions of children who go hungry each day. We are here to demand fair working conditions and living wages. We are here to represent the earth who sustains us, and the basic human right to clean air and water. We bring courage in the face of fear, love in the face of anger, generosity in the face of greed, and enthusiasm in the face of apathy. We are young, we are strong and we won’t rest until we can guarantee environmental protection and a healthy future for generations to come!

Malaika Edwards (electronic mail, May 21, 2000)

Malaika Edwards is a teacher at the Living Education Center in Charlottesville, Virginia.