On Sept. 21st, about 50 people gathered outside of the Bijou Theatre to peacefully protest the visit of Vice President Mike Pence and Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn to Knoxville.
Many who were present came for their shared interest against Pence and Blackburn’s policies and beliefs, as well as other reasons. The protest gathered the attention of many, as cars drove by honking their horns in support or in opposition of the group. Bystanders stopped to take photographs of the group from across the street and others yelled comments from their cars.
Multiple organizations were present at the protest, including student organizations at UT such as the Progressive Student Alliance, the College Democrats, and the Young Democratic Socialists of America. The Progressive Student Alliance organized the protest through a Facebook event.
According to the Progressive Student Alliance’s information page, the mission of their members is to “empower student and worker voices through solidarity and action.” Nate Stewart, a leader of the group and a sophomore studying history at UT, spoke out against Pence’s visit to Knoxville.
“We’re down here protesting the Marsha Blackburn fundraiser, which supports Mike Pence,” Stewart said. “There’s a number of student organizations here today, along with some other folks as well. Basically, we’re protesting ultra-conservative policies that Pence and Blackburn support; they’re very homophobic, very anti-immigrant and we disagree with their policies entirely, as well as their support for ICE. We don’t agree with anything they stand for.”
Diana Pope, junior at UT studying political science, was in attendance due to her opposition to Trump’s policies on immigration.
“Some of us are very hardworking students,” Pope said. “We aren’t just lazy millennials without jobs; we want to contribute to our government process, and it really makes me sad that people always have the stereotype that it is the lazy millennials because, personally, I’m a student that is working to get into law school and I just really believe that our country’s immigration policy should be changed.”
Although the majority of the protesters were students, some residents of Knoxville also spoke in opposition of the ideologies that Pence and Blackburn support.
“A law just passed in the Tennessee state legislature that restricts Medicare and Medicaid patients from seeking medical attention from anywhere that provides more than 50 abortions a year,” Chelsea Badgett, volunteer representative for Planned Parenthood, said. “That is targeting Planned Parenthood to try to defund them, but it definitely hurts the patients that are seeking medical services, because there are so few places for them to get those services.”
Although every protester had their own reason for attending, Pope believes that the event could have a larger level of importance than just exposing their views to the community.
“I think it’s important for people to protest because people’s opinions matter and ultimately we have a voice in what our government does,” Pope said. “When we don’t put our voices out there, we are allowing these politicians who are adopting these really corrupt policies to maintain these undemocratic practices.”
