Springdale : City awaiting fourth protest in one month
Posted on Monday, May 1, 2006
SPRINGDALE — When lines of students and other young Hispanics waved flags and marched along Emma Avenue in the early afternoon on April 7, the phones at Springdale City Hall began to ring.
Residents like Melissa Hale made calls to Springdale Mayor Jerre Van Hoose and several aldermen to complain about the impromptu gathering, which was part of a national protest of proposed changes to federal immigration laws.
Hale, who criticized the city’s response during Springdale’s April 11 City Council meeting, said she was shocked to see students marching during school hours with only one police officer to monitor the protest. She and other callers to city officials questioned the legality of the demonstration.
In Springdale, a city that’s grown to more than 60, 000, such demonstrations once were rare. Socially and politically charged events were left mainly to their neighbors to the south in Fayetteville.
But when residents advocating immigration changes gather tonight at Murphy Park, it will mark the fourth rally of some sort in the city in less than a month.
“This is very new territory,” said Alderman Mike Overton. “Springdale citizens are usually concerned about making a living. They don’t have time for protests, climbing trees or protecting the harbors.”
Protests are fairly common in Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas, said Dick Bennett, a co-founder of the Omni Center for Justice, Peace and Ecology, based near campus.
One memorable demonstration in Fayetteville came in March 2003, when seven naked women stopped traffic on College Avenue to protest the beginning of the war in Iraq. And in 2000, a Fayetteville-area woman spent three weeks living in a tree at the site of what would be Steele Crossing shopping center to stop the removal of 55 oak trees at what is now Kohl’s department store.
Bennett’s group organizes at least one event each month, including many demonstrations.
The protests in Springdale — where the population of Hispanics is about 33 percent of the city’s population of 62, 459, according to last fall’s special census — didn’t surprise Van Hoose.
Van Hoose, who was among the roughly 3, 000 attendees at an April 10 demonstration at Murphy Park, praised the Springdale Police Department and organizers for the event’s positive tone. Van Hoose said he received several e-mails lauding the event, though one “hateful e-mail” criticized Springdale for allowing the event.
“I guess the guy thought I was responsible for all the ille- gal aliens being here,” Van Hoose said.
FREE SPEECH While the Bill of Rights of the U. S. Constitution guarantees the right to assemble in public, two U. S. Supreme Court rulings have held that local governments have authority to require permits to ensure public safety. In Springdale, organizers must file a permit application at least 24 hours before a parade or protest, said City Attorney Jeff Harper. Police wouldn’t likely ticket demonstrators for not having a permit, he said. Springdale’s permit ordinance was adopted about 15 years ago as governments across the South dealt with demonstrations and counter-demonstrations related to the Ku Klux Klan, Harper said. The permit allows police to ensure a demonstration won’t overtly disrupt traffic on major streets and gives them time to plan for security, he said.
Hale was one of the residents who noticed students marching down Emma Avenue on April 7 and went to Alderman Ray Dotson’s business off Emma to tell him of her concern.
“If we have a shortage of police officers in our city, we need to do something about it,” Hale later told the Springdale City Council. “We’re not a small community anymore — if there had been more than one group down there, we could have really had a problem.”
Protesters who marched along Emma Avenue on April 7 weren’t aware they needed a permit, said Ken Watson, Springdale’s assistant police chief.
“These protests are kind of new to us,” said Watson, who grew up in Springdale and began working as a police officer during the early 1980 s. “The one where students walked out of school, that caught us off guard. But I think the kids had worse problems with school administrators than they had with us.”
Around 100 people took part in the April 7 march, some as young as junior high. Springdale High School Principal Allen Williams said some of the five to 10 students from his school who took part in the march were cited for truancy, but he didn’t have the exact number.
Ada Aguilar, spokesman for the Hispanic-led Arkansas Coalition for a Better Future, was concerned that some students across the nation were sending the wrong message by skipping school to protest.
Aguilar, a mother of five from Rogers who came to America from Guatemala by visa in 1973, said she had never taken part in a public demonstration before the immigration issue sparked her interest. Now she’s helping organize the demonstration scheduled for today at Murphy Park in an effort, she said, to show Hispanic solidarity for changes to immigration law.
Aguilar recently spoke to students at the Rogers Sophomore Center about immigration and the importance of continuing education.
“I thought they were sheep without a shepherd,” Aguilar said. “We’re asking the students to stay in school May 1, that’s why we’re having this rally after school.”
THE ISSUE Organizers of the April 10 demonstration worked with police and city leaders before more than 3, 000 gathered at Murphy Park to discuss proposed changes to immigration laws. A pending measure in the Senate would strengthen border security, create a guest worker program and offer a path toward citizenship for many of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. In the House, legislation to make illegal immigrants subject to felony charges has fueled several protests nationwide, mostly by immigrants. The Senate bill was stalled. Springdale’s changing demographics may have prompted the recent demonstrations, Van Hoose said. “Obviously this is a big issue there and it raises a lot of emotion in the hearts of a lot of people,” Van Hoose said. “This is kind of a new world for Springdale, Ark. When I was on the school board in 1989, we had less than 1 percent Hispanic population in our school system. From there to now, there’s been a huge influx of Hispanics into the community. It’s sort of been a boomtown atmosphere.” Gary Windham, who moved to Springdale in 1977 after retiring from the Marine Corps, is one of several veterans who recently formed the Patriots on Watch, an organization that opposes illegal immigration and held two rallies in mid-April and a picket of Tyson Foods Inc. ’s Northwest Arkansas employment center in Lowell.
“We want to let the business community know that we know they’re hiring illegal immigrants, and we want it to stop,” Windham said. “That’s the only way we can fight up here, to try and dry up some job sources.”
A Vietnam-era veteran, Windham said he’s never taken part in an organized demonstration before April.
Patriots on Watch has received about 15 calls a day from supporters since drawing about 100 to Murphy Park on April 23 for an immigration discussion, Windham said.
“Springdale’s always been a peaceful little town,” he said.
As late as Thursday, Windham said Patriots on Watch wouldn’t hold any demonstrations today. “We don’t want to interfere with the Latino community,” Windham said.
But by Friday, the group had been issued a permit by Springdale to hold a demonstration from 5: 30 p. m. to 6 p. m. at Murphy Park, ending just 30 minutes before the start of the pro-immigration rally.
Windham, a truck driver, couldn’t be reached for comment Friday about the group’s plans for tonight.
Before immigration-related protests began in April, Van Hoose couldn’t remember the last time he saw a public demonstration in Springdale other than the annual St. Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church Easter pilgrimage march.
“You just don’t see a lot of gatherings here,” Van Hoose said.
Allyn Lord, director of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale, said that a search of the museum’s files didn’t locate evidence of Springdale protests or demonstrations.
VOCAL FAYETTEVILLE Bennett moved to Fayetteville in 1949 to attend the University of Arkansas. Protests were virtually nonexistent as the United States moved on after World War II, said Bennett, now professor emeritus in English at UA. “I had World War II vets in my fraternity,” Bennett said. “It was a quiet time.” Bennett, who had returned to UA in 1965 to teach English, co-founded the Omni Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology in 2001 after retiring as professor. The organization hosts events and demonstrations advocating peace.
Organized marches can benefit a group by drawing attention to an issue, as well as provide a psychological boost to the participants, Bennett said.
When the Omni Center organized a march of the Iraq invasion last month along Dickson Street to the Fayetteville Square, the group filled out an application with the Fayetteville Police Department detailing the event’s location, parade route and expected number of participants.
Fayetteville Sgt. Matt Partain, who’s in charge of special events, said area organizations apply about twice a month to perform marches and demonstrations. Most demonstrations include about 100 participants, Partain said.
Protests for and against gay rights, abortion and other issues are held regularly in Fayetteville, Partain said.
One applicant is planning a “Million Marijuana March” from the UA campus to the Fayetteville Square from 4: 20 to 5: 30 p. m. Sunday.
Several marches use a route from Dickson Street east and south to Fayetteville’s downtown square, Partain said.
The number of protests and marches in Fayetteville has changed the way those events are perceived, Partain said.
“It becomes a routine thing,” Partain said. “It’s not that you don’t pay attention, but it’s not a shock to you.”
Fayetteville doesn’t require permits for protests or demonstrations, but most organizations apply for them, Partain said.
“Our demonstrators actually call us and say, ‘We’re going to be here, we just want you to know that, ’” Partain said.
Partain said he didn’t remember any problems with protesters during the last several years.
Last summer, however, members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., complained when Partain forced protesters a few feet farther than requested from the funeral of a military serviceman who died in Iraq. The group protests such funerals because they believe U. S. deaths in the Iraq war is God’s punishment for the United States’ toleration of homosexuality.
Partain also has fielded complaints from residents who disagree with protesters.
“Sometimes the general population doesn’t understand why we’re letting someone demonstrate,” Partain said. “Well, that’s their right, and we have to protect their rights.”
Sometimes the authorities are pleasantly surprised by a public demonstration. Looking out his office window late one morning several years ago, then-Springdale High School Principal Don Love noticed nearly 300 students gathering around the school’s flagpole. Alarmed at the site, Love left his desk to survey the scene. He was relieved to find a peaceful rally occurring in between class periods. “I saw they were praying,” Love said.
KEEPING THE PEACE A Springdale police officer attended the Arkansas Coalition for a Better Future’s meeting last week to help plan tonight’s event. After Hispanic community leaders and demonstration organizers met with Springdale police to plan the April 10 demonstration, the 3, 000 attendees encountered only minor parking difficulties, Watson said. Watson expected tonight’s rally at Murphy Park to be peaceful. “[Demonstration organizers ] have gone out of their way to do everything by the book, legally, and we’re very happy about that. Sometimes when you get groups protesting whose ideas are controversial, you get opposing groups that show up and you have to be prepared for that,” Watson said. “But so far we haven’t seen anything.” Groups on opposing sides of the immigration debate haven’t clashed in Springdale, although Fayetteville’s Partain wonders if that will last. “Most of the public is tolerant of them demonstrating once,” Partain said. “But as it kind of stretches out and the frequency of these protests [increases ], more people will become involved on the other side that really don’t understand or care for it. This immigration issue is going to come to a head sooner or later, and I hope it doesn’t boil over here.”
To contact this reporter: cmorasch@arkansasonline. com —————— • ——————Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.
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