Supporting Bradley Manning at Pride
On Sunday at the Heritage Pride Parade a contingent of Vets for Peace, World Can't Wait, Grannies, members of Whistleblowers Theater and others marched with banners, signs and whistles to support Bradley Manning. WBAI interviewed folks on the spot and did an in-depth piece later in the day.
A group of Pace University students who were watching the parade asked if they could join us on the march down 5th Ave. They jumped over the barricade and helped us pass out 3,000 "Free Bradley Manning" postcards and about 1,000 stickers to the thousands of people watching the parade. By the second half of the march route we had no materials left but were still cheered on by the parade watchers. Despite the crowd's cheers for the contingent the fact is that many did not know who Manning is or what he is charged with or how that matters to them.
There is still much to do to make Manning's case a matter of national concern. The website firedoglake.com has called for a concerted effort to get the significance of Manning's court martial into local papers before his next pre-trial hearing on July 16th: "Unfortunately the corporate media has been decidedly silent on his case. We need to bring Manning’s story to a wider audience before his court-martial to shed light on the government’s attempts to steamroll him to an unjust conviction on outrageous charges including ‘aiding the enemy.’" We can all write letters to the editors of local media to provide coverage of the Bradley Manning trial. See more here.
There are many actions that people can take to help spread the word about Manning's court martial and what everyone can do to help. Some of those ideas can be found here, Detailed information on the case to date can be found here and here.
The fact is that at the next hearing on July 16 there needs to be a dramatic showing of support for Manning in NYC. We need something more that 10 people in Union Square holding a banner and passing out leaflets--although that is valuable too, If you have ideas on what could be done please e-mail us at
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Only our imaginations limit what each of us can do to make the significance of the Manning case known! See sidebar for one creative response! Act now.
