Photograph by Steven Higgs
Bloomington police shadowed anti-I-69 protesters as they marched through the downtown on Saturday, April 19. The marchers took over the streets, despite having been denied a permit by the city. No confrontations occurred, and the march was peaceful.
The Bloomington Police Department wouldn't issue a parade march to opponents of Interstate 69, but that didn't stop protesters from taking over downtown Bloomington streets on Saturday, April 19 -- accompanied all the way by the Bloomington Police Department.
The parade was sponsored by Roadblock EarthFirst! and was endorsed by the Indiana Forest Alliance, NoSweat!, the I-69 Listening Project and Indiana Students Against War.
Roadblock Earth First! said in an e-mail that the march kicked off a reinvigorated campaign against the road that is sure to last well into the future.
Photo Album, by Steven Higgs
The parade started at People's Park and went down Kirkwood, up Walnut, across Sixth to Morton to Seventh to Dunn Meadow via Kirkwood, Indiana and Seventh. Police followed marchers and blocked traffic at intersections, as they learned the march's route.
The heaviest presence along the route was at the One City Center Building on Seventh Street, in which an I-69 planning office is located.
In the e-mail, Earth First! noted that bids were awarded on April 3 "for the actual construction of the first 1.77 miles of the NAFTA Superhighway."
The first four of 400-plus homes to be confiscated from landowners and destroyed for new-terrain I-69 have been demolished in Gibson County.
A spokesman for Roadblock Earth First! said of the parade: "There will be several actions taken to make sure this road will never be built and to remind INDOT and of course the corporate forces that we're out there."
