treelights:

Images from Day 1 of the 2008 DNC in Denver

It was a perfect sunny morning in Denver, Colorado as I headed out the back door of my house in Capitol Hill on my bike, heading to work. Emerging onto the alley that joins Clarkson and Emerson Streets between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, I encountered a long column of script applied in white chalk to the dark grey asphalt, like a lesson on a chalkboard. In precisely and neatly inscribed capital letters trailing half a block down I read the text of the poem "Democracy" by the African American poet Langston Hughes (full text follows the end of this post).

In the dappled light of the early morning sun rising through treetops, the poem appeared to shimmer between shadow and light like the speckled back of a trout in the clear waters of a mountain lake. The graffiti artist responsible must have been long gone, and no attribution could be found to connect the work to any group, but there was no question in my mind why the poem was there. It was the first day of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, and, in the minds of many of us, a new morning in the history of America.

After my half day clinic at Eastside Neighborhood Health Center in the traditionally African American neighborhood of Five Points, I joined my friend David Harris at Cuernavaca Park on the banks of the South Platte River which snakes its way through downtown Denver to visit the Guantanamo Bay prison cell which is on a national tour sponsored by Amnesty International – a project designed to highlight the ongoing abuses of human rights at Guantanamo Bay perpetuated by our government. In the immediate vicinity we met other activist groups getting their messages out, including Iraq Veterans Against the War and the American Friends Service Committee.

Later, David and I headed into the mayhem of LoDo (lower downtown, Denver’s urban core) which was crawling with convention delegates, celebrities, political activists, tourists, and the occasional protesters who hadn’t obediently taken their complaints to the ”free expression zone” (aka “freedom cage”) set up at a distance from the center of all the action at the Pepsi Center.

David disappeared into the Tattered Cover bookstore for a talk on environmentalism sponsored by The New Republic and I continued to wind through the busy downtown streets. Later that evening I joined Tony Smith and Jim Peterson at the Rialto Café on the Sixteenth Street Mall to watch the keynote speakers of the evening being broadcast from a widescreen TV above the bar. What a thrill to be there and hear Caroline Kennedy introduce her magnificent father Ted, to hear Senator Kennedy lay out the path of the future for the Democratic Party and the nation, pledging to be there in Washington next January for the inauguration of President Obama; to hear Republican Jim Leach track the evolution of the great debates which have guided our nation through two centuries, and finally to hear Michelle Obama introduce herself, her family, and her husband to America in a remarkably elegant and passionate speech.

Although the pundits at CNN were disappointed that more mud was not being slung at the Republicans, I could feel only pride and joy at the tone set by the way this convention opened, the spirit of hope and optimism pouring forth from everyone. My hope is that it continues, and that everyone in this great nation of ours responds by joining in.

Democracy

By Langston Hughes

1902-1967

Democracy will not come

Today, this year

Nor ever

Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right

As the other fellow has

To stand

On my two feet

And own the land.