T HE DEMOCRATIC PARTY held its national
convention last week to conduct party business and
pick its new party leaders, but many of the 30,000
people who invaded San Francisco for the convention
had their own forms of party business in mind.
It was a week for meetings and marches, debates and
demonstrations, rallies and rituals. Saturday the press corps,
15,000 strong, was treated to a night of free food, drink, and
entertainment featuring Martha Reeves at the outdoor
Embarcadero Center. The next day nearly 200,000 people
marched up and down Market Street to show AFL-CIO unity and
to call for lesbian/gay rights.
While a lone teenage girl stood on a trash can and preached
about religion, 1,000 people dressed in black carried black
coffins to a mock funeral for the 50,000 killed in El Salvador.
While supporters of different causes took their turns using the
demonstration lot in front of Moscone Center, the delegates and
alternates inside cheered and cried through a series of speeches.
The end of the four-day convention seemed to come just as the
press, delegates, and demonstrators were settling into the
routine of press conferences in the morning, protests in the
afternoon, convention business in the evening, and parties at
night. For the Democrats it was time to go home and wait four
years for the next one, but for the diehard conventioneers-the
press and the protestors-it was the beginning of the four-week
wait for the chance to do it all over again August 20-23 in Dallas
at the Renublican convention. _r Ni rjl..-
The Michigan Daily - Friday, July 27, 1984 - Page 11
Moscone Center.
Mahon
a impronatorstouruorna legisiator wiliie Drown's a5,00o party at Pier
ations, many delegates could only see the podium speakers on
agan at the Demonstrators listen to speeches at the National Lesbian/Gay Rights
rally.
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.3
One enterpreneur promotes his "collector's edition sexist buttons."