August 7th, 2005: Cindy Sheehan Prostests
Cindy Sheehan in front of the White House
In early 2004, a young American man named Casey Sheehan was killed while in service in Iraq. That June, his mother, Cindy Sheehan, was granted a meeting with then-President George Bush in Fort Lewis, Washington, to discuss the war and its consequences to the American people. Cindy later said that she came away from the meeting believing that the war in Iraq was fundamentally wrong. On August 7th, 2005, Cindy and close to a hundred other protesters camped out on the roadside outside and around Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Cindy demanded another meeting with President Bush, but did not receive this audience before the end of President Bush’s term, nor has she yet. Cindy and her fellow protesters were against the war, and determined to speak out against it to the highest authority that was willing to listen. Sheehan and her fellow protesters camped out for four weeks, before nearby residents in Crawford, a small town of 700, complained that their tents and campsites were obstructing the flow of traffic, and an ordinance was passed to prevent their camping (or anyone’s camping) at the side of the road, as well as one against roadside parking. When they refused to yield, twelve of the protesters were arrested, though never charged. Sheehan herself was not arrested, but the protesters who were arrested complained heavily about what they viewed as an obstruction of their freedom of speech, as if they had been arrested merely to shut them up. The American people begin to stir, many persuaded to the anti-war side of debates by the heartbroken mother trying to save others’ sons.
