LIA Protest Prequel – The Poster Party
The Sunday before the protests, the protesters organized a wee poster making party at Peabody Park in the Forbidden Zone (the forbidden Zone being being those regions of Memphis that Love In Action inmates are not allowed to enter while in the program). It was an affair that might have stuck you as a tad carefree, given the brutal nature of Love In Action’s Refuge program. But these folks, nearly all of them teens themselves (Morgan told me to go to Peabody Park and look for a bunch of crazy teens), had a message of genuine love and courage to be oneself, to speak to the people trapped inside LIA, and there were times when the atmosphere got a little giddy with it. But I could not emphasize this enough: the message they were determined to bring to the doorstep of LIA was not one of anger and fear and hurt, but of courage and love.
I can think of no quicker, surer solvent of the hatred and fear inside of John Smid’s hollow church, then the spirit these determined teens brought to the protests. They are an amazing group.
Poster Making – Peabody Park
!!
Love in Action
Stop It
Don’t Be Mean
WTF?
Why John Smid
Poster Making – Peabody Park
More photos to come…
June 12th, 2006 at 1:43 am
I like “Don’t be mean”. Simple and sweet. It does look like fun.
June 12th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
It was. And simple and sweet was by my reckoning, just what was needed to confront LIA, and in particular the parents I, and some of the others on the picket line saw, driving their kids out of there at the end of the day.