Martin Austermuhle
It was 234 years ago Sunday that American colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor as part of a symbolic protest against being taxed by the British while not having a representative in the Westminster Parliament. Yesterday District voting rights activists remembered the event by holding their own tea party, this one to protest the union’s last standing example of taxation without representation.
Though the wind whipped across the Potomac River, about 80 activists and supporters gathered in Georgetown Waterfront Park to push for further action on D.C. voting rights. There was a performance by the Young Suffragists (video here); speeches by Ilir Zherka, executive director of D.C. Vote, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large); plenty of customized voting rights tea bags and a symbolic dumping of dried leaves into the Potomac.
So what’s next? Well, if the Senate again fails to vote on legislation granting the District a voting seat in the House, we could stick to the historical playbook. While the Boston Tea Party provoked a number of responses from Britain, it also inspired imitators. On October 19, 1774, American colonists set fire to the HMS Peggy Stewart in Annapolis to protest continued British taxes on certain goods. Anyone game for a symbolic ship-torching for voting rights?
