Protest

Editor's note: What are your best memories from your senior year of high school? Was it prom? Making the basketball team? Did you get your driver's license that year? This school year, The Herald-Mail will talk with seniors from each public high school in Washington County about the memories they are making. Each month through their graduation, the eight students will talk about the moments that are making their senior year special. HAGERSTOWN - It might not be a popular opinion.

ACLU will pay protest defense By STEVEN T. DENNIS Staff Writer The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland will defend the Hagerstown man arrested last month while protesting the Washington County Commissioners on a park bench outside the county administration building. Lawrence H. Freeman has a Feb. 19 trial date in Washington County District Court on a charge of trespassing at a public building during business hours. At the time of his Dec. 23, 1997, arrest, he was holding up a sheet of paper that read: "Washington County Commissioners won't hire black men. " Dwight Sullivan, chief lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said Freeman was protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Editor's Note: Tim Rowland is on vacation. While he's away, favorite columns from the past will run on Tuesdays and Thursdays in The Morning Herald. This column first ran on April 19, 2000. Sad to say, but my World Bank protest didn't work out exactly as I'd hoped. I went to D.C. loaded for bear, with plenty of signs and banners decrying those outrageous ATM fees and, well, boy was my face red. I've always believed I would have made a good protester, but I was too late for the Vietnam War '60s and too early for world hunger/rain forest '80s.

About 100 people, most wearing hoodies and some armed with packages of Skittles and cans of ice tea, conducted a peaceful protest Friday over a violent act, marching from the Hagerstown Police Department to Public Square. They were protesting the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla., by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who was questioned by police, but not charged. Martin was not armed, according to published reports. “It's not a race issue, it's a kid issue because that could have been anyone's kid,” said Brandon Butler of Hagerstown.

HAGERSTOWN -- Holding signs such as "STOP spending," "No government health care" and "I want my country back," a group of about 50 protesters from throughout the Tri-State area gathered Saturday afternoon in Hagerstown's Public Square, despite cold and rainy weather, to protest what they see as excessive government spending, taxation and control over people's lives. The demonstration was one of about 100 such events organized in cities throughout the country Saturday as part of Operation: Can You Hear Us Now?

waynesboro@herald-mail.com SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. - Bobby Seale, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, a militant political movement that then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan called armed thugs and hoodlums, recounted his role in the civil rights protests in the turbulent 1960s in a speech at Shepherd College Thursday. Seale, 67, sometimes looked back on those violent times with humor as he told of the Panthers, armed with guns on their first outing on the streets of Oakland, Calif.

HAGERSTOWN - Pickets donned biohazard gear as a symbolic gesture to protest lead-based imports Wednesday in front of the Hagerstown office of U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-6th. Jerry Ernest, a member of United Steelworkers Local 9477 and leader of the picket, said union members across the country spent the day protesting 100 congressional district offices as part of the National Day of Action on Toxic Trade. The event was intended to convince Congress to pass the U.S. Food and Produce Responsibility Act, which is designed to help safeguard Americans against toxic imports, like toys and toothpaste, he said.

trishr@herald-mail.com MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - About 20 people gathered Wednesday to protest the Iraq War at the local office of U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., on Foxcroft Avenue in Martinsburg. Some held war protest placards and stood on the sidewalk in front of the office building, and others stood on the sidewalk in front of the Holiday Inn across the street. Several horns were honked in support as people drove by the protesters. Marking the 2,000th American military death, the participants in the vigil want Capito to support a Congressional effort to bring U.S. troops home, said Jamie Gregory, one of the organizers.

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. -- One of the busiest short stretches of road in the Tri-State area on any summer Sunday afternoon is U.S. 340 where it connects three states between bridges spanning the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers across from Harpers Ferry, W.Va. What better place, then, say two Shepherdstown, W.Va., area women to hold a protest against a proposed electric power line in late May. The women explained their protest plans Thursday morning to the Jefferson County Commissioners.

CRS personnel to protest; want director to quit By KIMBERLY YAKOWSKI kimy@herald-mail.com Upset about possible layoffs and calling for the top administrator's resignation, volunteer and career staff at Community Rescue Service are planning a "peaceful protest" outside the ambulance company's board of directors meeting tonight. Melanie G. Shank, a paid full-time medic at CRS and a protest organizer, said they also are protesting CRS Executive Director J. Michael Nye's unwillingness to hire an outside company to handle CRS billing.

About 50 area postal workers ignored Sunday afternoon's windswept cold to protest plans by the U.S. Postal Service to close mail processing plants in Martinsburg and Cumberland, Md., and to end Saturday mail delivery. Postal union members from the Eastern Panhandle; Washington, Allegany, Garrett, Frederick and Carroll counties in Maryland; Winchester, Va., and Baltimore joined the protest in front of Ryan's Grill Buffet and Bakery on Foxcroft Avenue. Phil Jones, president of the American Postal Workers Union Local 513 in Cumberland, was one of several spokespeople at the rally, dubbed Save Your Post Office.

A citizens group upset with a county fee being imposed on citizens for recycling is considering civil disobedience to bring attention to their opposition to the charge. An agenda item for a meeting Thursday night of Citizens for the Protection of Washington County called for risking arrest by refusing to pay for a permit to recycle trash. Joe Lane, president of the group, said he has talked to other people who think it is wrong to force people to pay to recycle and he said civil disobedience would be a way to show how this “little hick place” views recycling.

Protesters speaking out against genocide in Ethiopia took to Thurmont's main intersection Saturday, when a G-8 Summit in nearby Camp David was scheduled to wrap up. Police in riot gear stood in rows in the street as dozens of protesters held signs, waved flags, chanted and shouted messages through bullhorns. Their target was Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zanawi, whom they accused of being “one of the worst human rights violators in the world,” according to a two-page packet protesters distributed.

With world leaders on their way to Camp David for a Group of Eight summit, protesters trickled into nearby Thurmont to speak their minds. The movement started slowly Friday morning, with just two representatives of the Larouche Political Action Committee standing in the town square, advocating that President Barack Obama be removed from office. By noon, the ranks were growing, as members of Occupy movements had gathered in the Weis Markets parking lot to make signs and plan the rest of their day. Through it all, local, state and federal police were a constant presence through their patrols, working closely and cordially with Occupy groups, but watching out for more antagonistic protesters who have created havoc at past G-8 summits.

Greencastle parents and bus drivers stood outside the entrance to a school board meeting at Greencastle-Antrim Middle School Thursday night holding signs that read: “No contractors.” Their peaceful protest was to encourage board members to vote against outsourcing 14 bus routes to contractors. “We don't want to lose our jobs. I've hauled kindergarten students long enough to see them graduate,” said Jackie Simmons, a school district bus driver and spokeswoman for the  drivers.

About 100 people, most wearing hoodies and some armed with packages of Skittles and cans of ice tea, conducted a peaceful protest Friday over a violent act, marching from the Hagerstown Police Department to Public Square. They were protesting the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla., by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who was questioned by police, but not charged. Martin was not armed, according to published reports. “It's not a race issue, it's a kid issue because that could have been anyone's kid,” said Brandon Butler of Hagerstown.

Maggie Silva of Shippensburg, Pa. said her family moved from Cuba to the United States in 1950, and she supports the Tea Party because she does not want the United States to end up like her home country. “My father was born in Spain, and he lost it to communism. I was born in Cuba because he emigrated, and we lost Cuba in 1958,” she said. “Now we live in the United States, and I don't want to lose it.” Silva, 80, joined the Tea Party contingent from Hagerstown Tuesday in traveling toWashington, D.C., to join the Hands Off Our Healthcare Rally held by Americans For Prosperity on Capitol Hill.

Residents of a neighborhood near Longmeadow Road turned out in force for a Washington County public hearing Tuesday to protest the addition of residential-multifamily zoning to a nearby property. The property, six acres owned by Callas Contractors Inc. south of Longmeadow Road, is one of hundreds of properties set to receive new zoning under a comprehensive rezoning of the roughly 35,000-acre Urban Growth Area around Hagerstown, Williamsport and Funkstown. Tuesday's public hearing was the third the county has held on the proposed comprehensive UGA rezoning.

Six people showed up to support People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' peaceful protest before a Miss Maryland event at The Maryland Theatre on Sunday afternoon. PETA sent Miss Maryland Carlie Colella, of Hagerstown, a July 6 letter asking her to donate the fox fur coat she was awarded for winning the state pageant to PETA's anti-fur campaign. A $3,000 fox fur was donated by Maryland Fur Trappers Inc. as a prize for the winner. PETA also emailed the pageant organization's executive director to ask that the organization not give away fur prizes at future pageants.

The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York last month and have since spread across the nation generated mixed reactions Tuesday among area residents. Glenn Young of Williamsport said it was important that the protesters continue to exercise their right to nonviolent protests. “These protests are protected under the Constitution, and the people need to take advantage of that,” Young said. “There's too much inequity in income; people are making millions in bonuses, and other people are just barely scraping by.” Young said that whether the protest makes it to Hagerstown depends on who would organize it, but he would probably not participate, even though he supports it. The protests began in New York City on Sept.