Pipeline protesters proceed minus permit
100 march to City Hall to oppose the DAPL
After about 100 marchers arrived Friday night at a long-closed Memphis City Hall, they learned there was a reason the march started at the Mississippi River.
"We began at the river to symbolize that water is life," said Maria Oceja, a march leader.
Friday night's procession from Beale Street Landing to City Hall was organized in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation's opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The march went forward even though earlier this week the city refused to issue the group a permit, City officials said the organizers had failed to meet several requirements associated with the application.
"The permit law was put in place during the civil rights movement to stop people from marching, to stop people from trying to organize," Oceja said before the march began.
The U.S. Constitution allows for freedom of speech and freedom to assemble, she said.
"Even beyond that, we have the human right to protect our mother earth. We have the human right to come together and to fight injustices that we see," Oceja said.
Only two police cars and three officers on foot observed the start of the march as Oceja offered a prayer and then organized marchers so that people of color and others who are vulnerable were surrounded by their "white allies."
And even though the group was without a permit, Memphis police officers were present at every major intersection to halt traffic and allow the march-
ers to pass.
"We're out here to pray for our water, and we want to make it very intentional. This is not a protest; this is a prayer march, and we're not protesters. We're protectors of this water," said Zanya Mudbone Cruz, another organizer.
As the procession traveled slowly, heading north on Main, Downtown visitors halted their evening activities to watch them pass, with drummers and Native Americans in traditional dress leading the way.
But as the marchers moved past the busy restaurants, they played to a mostly deserted North Main Street.
Sarah Smith was in visiting Memphis from Chicago, heard the drums and came down from her hotel room to hear the prayers and observe ceremonies at City Hall.
She knew without being told that the assemblage was connected to the pipeline.
"The government was wrong in taking these people's land and then setting aside a small portion when the entire country was their's to begin with. And then, to tell them, 'You can have it but now we're going to take this part back because we want to make money from it'," Smith said. "That's wrong."
A similar March held on Friday morning in Washington, D.C. drew hundreds in a rally outside the White House.
Protesters demands include a meeting between President Donald Trump and tribal leaders and that tribal interest not be marginalized in favor of corporations or governments.
Native Americans have asserted that the pipeline threatens their water source. But this week a federal judge declined to halt construction of the final section of the $3.8 billion pipeline, which means oil could begin to flow through it as soon as next week.