Darfur Protest

10/15/2007

In Monday, October 15, 2007, around 50-70 demonstrators gathered outside JP Morgan-Chase's headquarters on 270 Park Avenue to encourage them to divest from PetroChina, an oil company which operates in Sudan.

The protesters were diverse in age: A young mom with two kids under four, another younger mother with her adolescent son handing out divestment information cards, a nice older couple, more or less conservatively dressed. A husband who stood across from and opposite the barrier behind which all those with signs had to stand enjoyed the most success handing out cards to the mostly business crowd passing by ("It was good cop/bad cop," he said). Several others made up this uniquely friendly and upbeat group of demonstrators.

Last but not least were the organizers, who work constantly for the end of atrocities in Darfur. Sharon Silber, from the NYC Coalition for Darfur, had also pressed for political action during the Bosnian genocide and was in the process of calling the City Comptroller about getting NYC to divest from Darfur, using "the targeted model of the Sudan Divestment Task Force", which keeps close track of which companies are invested in the Sudan, and which are starting to divest and at what stages.

(Photographs by Jackie Minichiello)