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1,000 brave cold to protest election result
By SHELBY OPPEL © St. Petersburg Times, published January 21, 2001 TALLAHASSEE -- As George W. Bush took the presidential oath on Saturday in Washington, D.C., at least 1,000 people rallied at the Florida state Capitol to dispute his claim to the White House. Labor leaders and NAACP organizers bused in protesters from Atlanta to Miami, who endured bitter North Florida winds to make it known that not all Americans accept their new president. "Eight hundred ninety-three thousand African-Americans went to the polls. They didn't count 893,000 votes. If they had, Al Gore would be president of the United States," yelled Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had been expected as keynote speaker for the "National Day of Moral Outrage," declined to attend, McEntee said. After learning that a tabloid newspaper was planning a story, Jackson, who is married, revealed Thursday that he fathered an illegitimate child with an employee of his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Leaders of the civil rights group have raised questions about the timing of the story, noting that it broke only days before Jackson was to lead the Tallahassee rally. Speakers asked the racially diverse crowd to pray for Jackson and his family. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who worked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., drew laughter when he tried to make light of the situation. "I'm the father of several children by her," Lowery said, gesturing to his wife. "Get that in the paper." Protesters pointed walking canes and upside-down American flags to the bright sky, in a sea of signs that read "Heil to the Chief" and "W: Not My President." Above the courtyard between the old and new Capitol buildings, an airplane trailed the banner: "Florida Loves Jeb!" But most who attended the rally were convinced various events during the Florida election conspired to prevent the counting of thousands of votes that were cast for Vice President Al Gore, particularly in African-American communities. Bush ultimately was declared the winner in Florida, which gave him the Electoral College victory and the presidency. Alex Dues, 19, a freshman at Morehouse College in Atlanta, boarded an NAACP bus at 6 a.m. to attend the rally. "What they did in Florida was wrong. It's the least I can do to just come down and be here for it," he said. Tom Baxter, a Tallahassee librarian and Vietnam War veteran, said he "didn't go to Vietnam and risk my life so my vote wouldn't be counted." "I don't like Gore too much, and I like Bush even less, but I want to see the votes counted," said Baxter, 54. More than a dozen labor, legislative and civil rights leaders spoke to the group and urged them to do more than get angry. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, and former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson exhorted the crowd to work to end racial profiling, to achieve economic justice for minorities and to register more voters before the next presidential election in 2004. "I believe that Florida was a wake-up call. We started getting so fat and sassy, we stopped struggling," said Jackson, a candidate for president of the Democratic National Committee. Speakers also had a warning for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the new president's brother, who has not declared whether he will run for a second term in 2002. McEntee, the labor leader, said Bush's policies are anti-worker. "We're going to make it clear to Jeb Bush that he has gone too far, and in 2002, we're going to run him out," McEntee said.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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