Above photo: Protesters across the street from Hilton Riverside. FightBack! News.
New Orleans, LA – The Democratic National Committee met in New Orleans this week at the Hilton Riverside for their annual spring meeting. The conference rang in its second day on April 10, and blue leaders went red in the face when members confronted them on Palestine.
The spring meeting is a strategy session and networking opportunity for candidates and other members. It gives members a chance to lobby for cities to hold the 2028 Democratic National Convention. But the rising opposition to Israel drove the agenda. Several nonbinding anti-war resolutions were on the docket, although none passed. Among other causes, these resolutions condemned AIPAC, demanded an independent investigation into Trump’s massacre at a girls’ school in Minab, and set conditions for U.S. aid to Israel. Activists inside and outside the conference made their solidarity with Palestine known.
During a general session, Democratic activist and nurse India Walton stood up and interrupted the speakers. “Why are you afraid of AIPAC? Be afraid of voters!” she shouted. Walton ran a credible challenge to the incumbent Buffalo mayor in 2021. She previously served as a representative with the Service Employees International Union and was a leader in the George Floyd uprising.
Activists from New Orleans Stop Helping Israel’s Ports (NOSHIP) spoke up alongside Walton. “Free, free Palestine!” Charlie Marcotte chanted.
Outside the hotel, about 30 people protested the DNC’s lack of opposition to Israeli and U.S. wars.
“We will fight every single day, we will introduce these resolutions, we will protest, we will do everything we damn can to stop this genocide,” speaker Cameron Landin addressed the crowd. Landin is the Political Affairs Director for College Democrats of America, and served as a delegate for Georgia at the 2024 DNC. He sponsored the spring meeting’s resolution against AIPAC.
A mobile billboard truck showed a display reading “Release the autopsy!” It referred to an internal report that allegedly identifies the genocide in Gaza as an important reason for Harris’s failed 2024 presidential bid.
Protesters chanted “No boots on the ground, no jets in the air – U.S. out of everywhere!” and “They tell lies and then they bomb, first Iraq and now Iran!”
Organizers of the protest included NOSHIP, Democratic Socialists of America, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
