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Beck, Palin tell thousands to 'restore America'
By Philip Rucker, Carol Morello and Amy Goldstein
Saturday, August 28, 2010; 5:09 PM
A sea of people rallied at the hallowed site of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday as conservative commentator Glenn Beck and other heroes of the "tea party" movement honored Americans serving in the military and delivered impassioned calls to turn the nation back to God and to protect the traditional values that they said make the country exceptional.
( Full coverage: Beck, Sharpton rallies )
Claiming the legacy of the nation's Founding Fathers and repeatedly evoking civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., Beck, Sarah Palin and other speakers at the "Restoring Honor" rally exhorted a sprawling and overwhelmingly white crowd to concentrate not on the history that has scarred the nation but instead on what makes it "good."
"For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, and we have wandered in darkness in periods from the beginning," Beck said, at times pacing at the memorial. "We have had moments of brilliance and moments of darkness. But this country has spent far too long worried about scars and thinking about the scars and concentrating on the scars.
"Today," he continued, "we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished - and the things that we can do tomorrow. The story of America is the story of humankind."
Beck's attempt to appropriate the legacy of King, who delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech from the same marbled steps 47 years ago to the day, occurred as the Rev. Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders organized a simultaneous event. They rallied outside Dunbar High School in Northwest Washington and planned to march to the Mall, to the site where a memorial to King is being built.
"The 'March on Washington' changed America," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said at the Sharpton rally, referencing King's 1963 speech. "Our country reached to overcome the low points of our racial history. Glenn Beck's march will change nothing. But you can't blame Glenn Beck for his 'March on Washington' envy. Too bad he doesn't have a message worthy of the place."
Avis Jones DeWeever, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women also spoke to the crowd at Dunbar High School: "Don't let anyone tell you that they have the right to take their country back. It's our country, too. We will reclaim the dream. It was ours from the beginning."
Beck's rally has been billed as a peaceful and non-political "re-dedication" of the traditional honor and values of the nation. Throngs of people crowded shoulder to shoulder for six city blocks, from the Lincoln Memorial past the reflecting pool to the World War II Memorial. From there, the ralliers spread out as they spilled onto the grounds of the Washington Monument.
The size of the gathering promises to be a subject of contention. Demonstrations on the Mall are notoriously difficult to estimate, with no official source for such figures. At one point, Beck joked he had "just gotten word from the media that there is over a thousand people here today." Later, he told he crowd he heard it was "between 300,000 and 500,000."
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), speaking soon after the Beck rally at her own impromptu event nearby, said: "We're not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today - because we were witnesses."
Beck, a Fox News host, has developed a national following by assailing President Obama and Democrats, and he warned Saturday that "our children could be slaves to debt." But he insisted that the rally "has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with God, turning our faith back to the values and principles that made us great."
King's niece Alveda King, an anti-abortion activist, addressed Beck's rally with a plea for prayer "in the public squares of America and in our schools." Referencing her "Uncle Martin," King called for national unity by repeatedly declaring "I have a dream."
"I have a dream that America will pray and God will forgive us our sins and revive us our land," King said. "On that day, we will all be able to lift every voice and sing of the love and honor that God desires of all his children."
The crowd was not visibly angry. Rather, people said they had come to express their fear that the country is at a perilous moment.
But the much-discussed anger did sometimes appear. A counter-protester, Ben Thielen, 32, a District public-policy worker, caused a stir with a sign that said "It's because of the 1st Amendment that Glenn Beck can spew his filth on the steps."
Thielen said that a gray-haired woman accosted him and tried to rip the placard out of his hand, screaming, "No signs! No signs!" This was a reference to the event organizers' hope that political signs would not be displayed. (However, plenty of "Don't Tread on Me" flags were waved.)
"She just came up to me and said, 'No signs!' and clawed me like a wild animal," Thielen said, showing off red marks on his arms.
The crowd erupted when Beck introduced Palin, a tea party heroine and a former Republican vice presidential candidate. Palin said she was speaking not as a politician, but as the mother of a combat veteran. Evoking the legacies of King, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Palin called on Americans to restore traditional values to the country.
"We must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want," Palin said. "We must restore America and restore her honor."
She said the military is "a force for good in this country, and that is nothing to apologize for." Palin honored three military veterans, hugging them onstage, and told people to look to them as inspiration, even when the nation's challenges might sometimes seem "insurmountable."
"But here today, at the crossroads of our history, may this day be the change point," Palin said. "Look around you. You're not alone. You are Americans! You have the same steel spine and the moral courage of Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King. It is in you. It will sustain you as it sustained them."
The crowd responded with chants of "USA! USA! USA!"
When Palin mentioned her former running mate, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Steve Richardson, 72, of Denver shouted, "John who?" Richardson, who attended last year's Tea Party 9-12 rally, said, "I just think McCain was a better airman than a politician" because he supports energy trading and is too pro-immigration.
At the counter-demonstration at Dunbar, Joyce White arrived early to show her opposition to Beck.
"If we hadn't elected a black president, do you think they would be doing this today?" she asked.
She recently retired and brought her grandson Troy to witness what she said would be a historic event.
"Reclaim the Dream" T-shirts with black and white pictures of King were available for $10 near vendors selling wooden statues and Kinte cloth.
Tehuti Imhotep came from Baltimore with posters depicting black history from the middle passage through King's 1968 march in support of trash haulers in Memphis.
Imhotep shouted at passersby: "This is our real history. [Beck's] trying to redefine the civil rights movement. How insensitive! King was about bringing people together. This man Beck is pulling people apart."
The Sharpton rally was primarily African American.
Barbara Williams-Skinner, president of the Skinner Leadership Institute, later addressed the crowd and drew strong ties between the 1963 rally where King spoke of his "dream" and the rally that drew hundreds of people to Dunbar High School.
"Like Dr. King, we believe that the bank of justice is not bankrupt," she said. "We thank you God for raising up President Barack Obama as a small down payment on that dream."
Bianca Farmer, a senior at Dunbar High School, got big applause when she asked the crowd not to stop at celebrating Obama. "We must be fearful of stopping there," she said. "The fight is not in the same arena as it was 47 years ago, but the fight lives on."
People who came to the Beck rally carried lawn chairs and canes, backpacks and lunch sacks. One man planted an American flag on one side of his hat and a "Don't Tread on Me" flag on the other.
Messages on the shirts of ralliers included: "I can see November from my house," "Restoring honor starts here" and "RECESSION: When your neighbor loses his job. DEPRESSION: When you lose your job. RECOVERY: When Obama loses his job."
"We just feel that government's getting too large," said Bill Bunting, 58, of Lancaster, Pa., who was laid off from his construction job this spring and now works as a real estate agent. "It's mainly to send a message to politicians that we're tired of the corruption, both Democrats and Republicans. They should go back to following the Constitution."
Others came just for Beck, a television personality who has become a hero of the emboldened tea party movement. At 8:50 a.m., as the crowd spotted him near the Lincoln Memorial, people chanted: "We love Glenn! We love Glenn!"
"I watch Glenn Beck," said Kathy Thomas, 70, a dressmaker from Bridgewater, N.J. "I love Glenn Beck. I have a lot of admiration for the man. We feel that he's honest, sincere and really cares about the country and the people who are in it."
Olga Sanchez, 79, of Tampa, had never been to a rally in Washington. But Sanchez, a retired administrative assistant, watches Beck on television every day. And when she heard him announce plans for the rally, Sanchez called her younger brother, a trumpet player in the National Symphony Orchestra, and said she wanted to come.
"I'm a big fan of Glenn Beck," said Sanchez, a registered Republican, sitting in her walker in front of the memorial's first step. "He is opening our eyes, teaching us the history we didn't learn in school."
The event had a strong military theme, with Beck giving a "Badge of Merit" to three soldiers. The rally was paid for through donations to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which funds scholarships for children of service members killed in action.
Speakers at Sharpton's 11 a.m. rally at Dunbar High School were to include Education Secretary Arne Duncan, radio host Tom Joyner, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and National Urban League President Marc Morial. "African Americans are still not treated equally in terms of education, the criminal justice system," Sharpton said in an interview. "We're coming to remind ourselves of the dream and with a challenge to claim it."
Back on the Mall, Rosa Sadowski, 50, stood on one of the pediments at the base of the Lincoln Memorial steps singing "America the Beautiful" in a strong, clear soprano. She immigrated from Mexico to the United States 13 years ago as a missionary, and now lives in Indianapolis with her husband, Patrick.
Patrick Sadowski, wearing a polo shirt with eagles and stars and stripes, said that he belongs to the Constitution Party, because "I feel the Republicans and the Democrats are the same people who own all the horses in the race." He said that he favors candidates of any party as long as they are "biblically based."
John Sawyers and Linda Adams say they aren't angry but simply frustrated at what they call the "ruling class."
And at the health-care bill they say few supported. And at schools that no longer say the Pledge of Allegiance. And at elected officials who run on one platform and govern on another.
So the couple from LaPorte, Colo., flew to Washington to attend the rally.
"We want our country to get back to its original roots," said Adams, 52, a university administrator whose ancestors were on the Mayflower and fought in the American Revolution.
"It's not anger," said Sawyers, 47, an engineer who grew up on a farm in Virginia. "It's more, 'Guys, why are we going this way?' It's time for the silent majority to say its wrong."
Sawyers, a registered Republican, and Adams, an independent, said they were moved to attend by Beck's theme of honor.
"Both of us are unhappy with the perception Obama is apologizing for everything we ever did," said Adams wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Does the Constitution say we the sheeple?"
"We feel the United States is the greatest country," Adams added. "And we felt we had to do something."
At 8 a.m., thousands of people wearing "Restoring Honor" shirts were streaming down 22nd Street NW from the Foggy Bottom Metro stop, running smack into George Washington University's move-in day. At the GW Deli, a popular sandwich shop, an employee said that two rally participants threw sandwiches in his face and refused to pay because they didn't agree with a tax on the food.
Beck repeatedly said the Saturday rally was intended to be "entirely" nonpolitical, but with the midterm elections nine weeks away, it is sure to be seen as a test of the strength and energy of the conservative movement. Beck is hugely popular among tea party activists, and the size, makeup and flavor of Saturday's crowd could offer clues about what has proved to be a powerful but unpredictable political movement.
The event has invited comparisons to last September's "9/12" march along Pennsylvania Avenue, an anti-tax rally that was the first national gathering to demonstrate the size and influence of the burgeoning tea party movement.
Saturday's event comes on the heels of a primary election season that has emboldened tea party activists. In Palin's home state of Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a member of the GOP leadership, is trailing in a primary behind a political neophyte whose underdog campaign was propelled by Palin and tea party groups. After Tuesday's primary, Gulf War veteran and lawyer Joe Miller leads, although no winner has been declared as vote-counting continues.
Beck has urged his followers to keep Saturday's event peaceful. Organizing literature urges participants not to bring firearms, alcohol or political signs, and organizers were passing out cards with similar instructions on the Mall late Friday. The Republican Party has distanced itself from the event, and no elected officeholders are expected to speak from the stage.
Still, Democrats preempted the rally by launching a Friday offensive designed to cast Republicans as extremists beholden to the tea party agenda. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, assailed Republicans for pursuing a "destructive agenda" and called out the tea party movement for pushing the GOP to the "extreme right." And the Democratic National Committee released an online video featuring tea party favorites: Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul and other Republicans. The video was titled "GOP Tea Party: These People Could Be in Charge."
Some tea party demonstrators said they were mindful of the caricature of their movement that has taken hold among some Americans over the past year, and they see Saturday's rally as an opportunity to define themselves before a national audience.
"I'm not talking about some guy that doesn't have teeth and digs ditches for a living," Marcus Kindley, who owns a stock brokerage firm in Greensboro, N.C., said as he prepared to travel to Washington for the event. "I'm talking about doctors, lawyers, professionals, small-business owners. They are fire-breathing angry at the government for not listening."
D.C. Fire and EMS evaluated about 200 people and treated about 100 people from the Beck rally on the Mall, said Pete Piringer. About two dozen had to be taken to hospitals, some with cardiac issues.
EMS personnel also transported about a dozen people from Dunbar and the march.
ruckerp@washpost.com morelloc@washpost.com goldsteina@washpost.com
Staff writers Amy Gardner, Hamil R. Harris, Krissah Thompson, Annie Gowen, Derek Kravitz and Lois Romano contributed to this report.
Beck, Palin tell thousands to 'restore America'
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