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D.C. Residents To Rally For Voting Rights

By: Patrick Madden // October 13, 2011
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Shadow Sen. Mike Brown, center, and other D.C. residents sit on 2nd St. NE in April to protest D.C.'s lack of autonomy and voting rights. City leaders are calling on residents to rally for voting rights again this weekend.
Armando Trull
Shadow Sen. Mike Brown, center, and other D.C. residents sit on 2nd St. NE in April to protest D.C.'s lack of autonomy and voting rights. City leaders are calling on residents to rally for voting rights again this weekend.

 

As D.C. gears up for Sunday’s dedication of the Martin Luther King Memorial, city leaders are urging residents to hit the streets this weekend and rally for D.C. voting rights.

Saturday’s D.C. Full Democracy Freedom Rally and March is scheduled to begin at Freedom Plaza, which is the same spot where the a group of protesters in the Stop the Machine protest have been camping out.

After the rally, demonstrators will head out through the streets of the District and merge with another group of marchers, the "Jobs and Justice" march led by reverend Al Sharpton. Together, the demonstrators will then head to the King Memorial. 

Illyr Zherka, with the advocacy group DC Vote, says timing of the rally couldn’t be better.

"As we meet, people are already conspiring to add riders to the D.C. budget and we have to show up on Saturday and demand our rights, and demand the President and our allies, Senator Reid and others, reject all opportunities and all efforts to put riders on the District’s budget," says Zherka. 

The rally at Freedom Plaza is scheduled to begin Saturday at 9:30 a.m.

 

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