4-20-16

During this hour I guest host "The Leslie Marshall Show."

I'm joined by Nick Nyhart, the President and CEO of the Every Voice Center, and Charlie Cray, a Researcher at Greenpeace USA. Both were arrested at the Capitol Monday along with over 300 more protesters (including approximately 60 organization and movement leaders). This brought the total arrested between the Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening movements to over 1,400 arrested in a week. That broke the record for non-violent direct action protests in Washington for a single week.

The message: On voting rights, money in politics and the recent vacancy on U.S. Supreme Court, Congress is failing to do its job and ignoring the will of the people. Democracy Awakening isn’t the end of something, but the beginning of a new phase in the movement for democracy, organizers said.

Those who planned to risk arrest included top leaders of the AFL-CIO, All Souls Unitarian Church, the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Postal Workers Union, Campaign for America’s Future, Democracy Initiative, Center for Popular Democracy, Communications Workers of America (CWA), Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Every Voice, Food & Water Watch, Franciscan Action Network, Free Speech for People, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Auto Workers Union (UAW), Jobs With Justice, the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church; the NAACP, Oil Change International, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, the United Church of Christ, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, We Are Casa, the Yes Men and 350.org.

Also risking arrest were NAACP president and CEO Cornell William Brooks; the Rev. William Barber II, pastor and Moral Monday architect; radio commentator Jim Hightower; and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben and Jerry’s.

Thousands of activists from around the country streamed into the nation’s capital April 16-18 for Democracy Awakening, which featured teach-ins, a rally, a march and lobbying as well as the civil disobedience. The aim: to fight back against business as usual in Washington, D.C.

More than 300 organizations endorsed Democracy Awakening. Lead organizations included the American Postal Workers Union, Common Cause, Communications Workers of America, Democracy Initiative, Every Voice Center, Food & Water Watch, Franciscan Action Network, Greenpeace, NAACP, National Nurses United, People For the American Way, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Student Debt Crisis and U.S. PIRG.

Democracy Awakening is part of a broad movement aimed at advancing democracy reforms. The mobilization began April 2, with Democracy Spring, an event that featured a march from Philadelphia to Washington D.C., followed by six days of sit-ins at the Capitol.

To sign up for updates on what's next for the 'Democracy Initiative,' which organized Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening, visit www.democracyawakening.org/stay-connected.

Nick Nyhart's Twitter handle is @nicknyhart and Charlie Cray's is @CharlieFCray.