At about 1 p.m. Sunday, nearly 100 participants at last weekend’s National Conference of Organized Resistance at American University in Washington, D.C. crowded outside the main steps of the Ward Circle building and onto the quad.

The sun had warmed the quad enough that many ate their lunches of wraps, tortilla chips and fruit outside.

People raised their faces to the sun, peeling off their jackets or long-sleeved shirts to absorb the warmth. They laughed and chatted, discussing what they learned at the various workshops of Saturday and that morning, trading stories, gossiping about the night’s event, planning upcoming events.

The conference, called NCOR, attracts activists from all over the country, activists interested in anything and usually everything from human rights – women’s reproductive rights, minorities rights, queer and LGBT rights – to philosophies and practices of other social systems – anarchism, socialism, communism – to concepts such as fair trade, activism and true freedom.

Nearly 30 students from Syracuse University and the State University of New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry carpooled for about six hours down to the conference, and slept on the floor of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church for two nights. They paid only $12 to register, a fee which covered each guest’s eight workshops and two lunches.

By 1 p.m. Sunday, the SU and ESF students sat on some stone steps, tired but motivated, preferring to forget about returning home and simply indulge in the beautiful sky and warm air.

Then an enormous sound ripped through the air, ricocheting around the grassy quadrangle, echoing off the stone walls of the buildings surrounding it, exactly like a gunshot.

Everyone froze, faces turned toward the sound, half-eaten wraps still grasped in their hands, apples and bananas raised midway to their mouths. In silence, a panicky fear and astonishment crept into their throats.

No other sound followed it, no more shots. The crowds relaxed, laughed nervously and when they realized the sound was only a bike tire that had exploded nearby, they continued to eat, forgetting it.

But for an instant, a fraction of a second, they tasted the fear of violence, of weaponry, of war, of injustice and powerlessness. And that bike tire reminded them.

It reminded them that others around the world tasted that same fear every day, while they – middle class Americans – were privileged to sit on that grass, eat those sandwiches, bask in the sun, with their bikes or cars parked nearby, cell phones in their pockets, clothes on their backs and friends beside them, safe and free.

It reminded them that no one should ever taste that fear they tasted, for one split second – and it reminded them of everything they were working for: peace, equality, rights and safety for all people and living things.

It reminded them of why they are activists.

Published on February 7, 2005 at 12:00 pm