After more than 500 students marched across the National Mall on Sunday to Lafayette Square, 18 of them - including Scott Warren '09 and Colin O'Brien '10 - broke with the group. They crossed Pennsylvania Avenue to stand on the sidewalk directly in front of the White House with protests signs and, as they had planned, were arrested.
The protest was one of the many held around the world for the "Global Day for Darfur" to mark five years of genocide in Sudan. It was organized by STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, the national umbrella organization for more than 700 high school and college programs, including Brown's Darfur Action Network.
The primary goals of Sunday's protest were to put pressure on President Bush to intervene in Sudan and to get press attention for their cause, said Warren, the national student director and founder of STAND.
After standing in front of the White House holding signs bearing protest slogans for about 15 minutes, federal law enforcement arrested the students one by one using plastic handcuffs. They were driven to a jail and spent about two hours in holding cells while they were fingerprinted and paperwork was processed.
Both students and police knew that the protest and arrests were going to take place beforehand, Warren said. Students were told what would happen once they were arrested and instructed on how to behave during the process, he said.
"We wanted to make sure we were doing it as peacefully as possible and not provoking any altercations with police," Warren said.
Everything was going according to plan until an officer began to go over the holding procedures, said O'Brien, STAND national high school outreach coordinator. The officer told the students that they would spend the night in jail and would be taken to a judge in the morning. "After 30 seconds of really awkward silence he started cracking up," O'Brien said. "For those 30 second I was about ready to die."
To be released, each accepted a misdemeanor charge of violating a permit, since the students occupied the area in front of the White House with protest materials for an extended period of time, and paid $100 bail, Warren said. Because they do not plan to challenge the charges, the misdemeanor will go on their permanent record, but no further action will be taken against them by law enforcement officials.
"I had doubts beforehand about getting arrested but was really, really happy with my decision," O'Brien said. "It was really encouraging for us to see so many people on the other side of the street as enthusiastic as we were."
O'Brien said he was concerned about having the charge on his permanent record and questioned whether engaging in civil disobedience would help or harm their cause. "Like everything we do in the movement, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the impact beforehand. ... You have to do these things a bit blindly, but we have already seen positive results," he added. "I am confident that it was the right thing to do."
While pleased with the results of the protest and arrests, Warren said it was not something he would want to do again without good reason.
"I was a little nervous going in but was really glad about the press attention and the positive student reaction," he added.
"It catches peoples' eye and gets the message out to as many people as possible," O'Brien said. "It shows how important we think this cause is."
With cameras and reporters on the scene, Warren said he felt the group's goals to put pressure on Bush and to garner media attention were accomplished. The arrests were featured on the CNN Web site later that day.
