The first Get on the Bus trip to New York - April 19, 1996

The wonderful thing about activism is that it gives you the opportunity to create things from seemingly nothing. Someone had an idea: "Hey, I thought it would be neat if we all went on a trip to the United Nations and went on a tour." The idea was adopted by others and built upon: "Why don't we talk about that tour of the UN… we could also meet the AI representative to the UN and maybe even do a protest at a consulate near the UN. Maybe we could invite other student and local groups in the area." The idea kept building and many people came on board to help with the planning and implementation. The result: Get on the Bus - a day trip for human rights.

On the way down to New York on the bus, we watched the Goldman Video on Ken Saro-Wiwa to get in the mood for the demonstration. Our group was made up of local activists, student activists from middle school, high school, and college, as well as our youngest activist who wore an AI bumper sticker on her back at the demonstration, while chugging on a bottle of chocolate soy milk (she is two years old). We had activists from at least 6 countries: including Kenya, Brazil, Portugal, United Kingdom, India, and the US.

When asked what brought all these people together one member responded, "I made a few calls, but it was not any of us. It was the actions of the Nigerian government that brought out the moral outrage of the people, and they needed a way to express that outrage… this is the way they are expressing that outrage."

More than 50 people had boarded the chartered bus from Newton, Massachusetts to travel to New York City and to the Nigerian Consulate to protest. The protest started at 10:30; we marched up and down the sidewalk ringing a cowbell and chanting pro-human rights slogans. We had a 4-person delegation that went into the Consulate and met with the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Consul General stated that he found the demonstration very intimidating and that it put him under pressure. Upon leaving, we gave the Consul General a nifty Amnesty T-shirt.

The police were out in force but were cooperative and helped lend an air of 'officiality' to the event. The group finished the demonstration at approximately 11:30, after granting interviews with WBAI and the Columbia University Radio station.

The group of 50 had lunch at various places in the area. Then we met back up at the knotted gun sculpture outside the UN and went inside for a tour. We got a whirlwind tour of the UN, and then a UN spokesperson talked to us about human rights. When we questioned him thoroughly about many different issues (including: Rwanda, Guatemala, Brazil, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia), he seemed surprised at the group's collective knowledge. Never underestimate a group of Amnesty International activists!

From there, we went to meet the AI representatives to the United Nations. Florence Martin and Tania Baldwin are both Deputy Representatives to the United Nations. They spoke to use on the lawn outside of the UN building. They were both very interesting and friendly. They told us of their work for the International Secretariat of AI (based in London). It was a very healthy bonding experience between AI members and the staff that work for us at the international level. We gave them T-shirts and took lots of pictures and video of our meeting. We will keep in touch in the both of them.

Lastly, we broke up and went to eat at local eateries in about 4 or 5 different groups. We all met up back on the bus at 6:30pm and debriefed on the way home. We watched videos and got back home at about 10:30pm. The trip could not have gone any better… by all accounts, it was a smashing success.

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