Trampling Free Speech
By Nigel French
On Sunday, August 29th, the day before the convention opened, half a million people attended a march organized by United for Peace and Justice. The march took several hours to file by the heavily fortified Madison Square Garden and clogged 7th Avenue from 14th to 34th with high-spirited and colorful dissent. UFPJ had been denied the right to rally in Central Park ("Whose Park? Our Park" was a frequent chant), but the march went off with little confrontation, and the cops were, for the most part, courteous and good-humored.