Day Seven: The Final Leg to Austin
September 28, 2000
Cathy Jordan, a medical marijuana patient with Lou Gehrig's Disease, had
her first full day with the Journey after joining us yesterday. She is
an inspiration to us all - traveling from Florida in her wheel chair
severely disabled by Lou Gehrig's. Lisa and Amanda joined from
Gainesville, TX four and a half hours away near the Oklahoma border. We
also had consistent observers from various law enforcement agencies in
Texas along the final day before reaching Austin.
Tomorrow we will be joined by a busload of citizens, mainly children who
have a parent incarcerated for a non-violent drug offense, from Tulia,
TX (about 10 hours away from Austin). They have made their own Journey
to join with us. We are inspired by their participation. Tomorrow, the
ACLU is scheduled to file suit challenging an 18 month undercover drug
enforcement that targeted the African American community resulting 40
African Americans, two whites and one Latino being arrested.
We began in Giddings, TX with a First Amendment demonstration at the
Courthouse. We passed out literature to signatures, held signs for
passing vehicles and were interviewed by the local media. Local police
hid behind the corner of a local bank monitoring our activities. They
stayed with us throughout lunch and monitored us as we left town from
behind restaurants and in cemeteries.
We arrived at Austin to a First Amendment Forum at the Mexican Cultural
Center. We were joined in the session by Cop Watch, an Austin-based
group that monitors police abuse. There were about 50 people in
attendance. The two-hour forum included the skits from the A&M forum on
the First Amendment rights of petitioners and the Fourth Amendment
rights of people in automobiles. Cop Watch added skits on searches of
your home and being interrogated at the police statioon. Kevin Aplin,
our Florida ally, spoke about how to exercise First Amendment rights.
We already have a full day tomorrow, with a parade, press conference and
demonstration outside of Governor Bush's mansion. But, the Journeyers,
particularly the medical marijuana patients, are upset with Al Gore’s
dishonesty on the issue of medical marijuana. We saw the Democratic
headquarters in Austin and are discussing the logistics and tactical
issues around an event there tomorrow.
Kevin
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