FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
CONTACT: ADAM EIDINGER (202) 744-2671
NIKOLAS SCHILLER (202) 805-1603
DC Residents Raise DC Liberty Pole on
National Mall to Demand Equality
Nonstop Vigil to Hold Site without Permit Until April 20
WASHINGTON, DC — Early Wednesday morning, brave District of Columbia residents and supporters
from Maryland and Virginia converged at 3rd Street on the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol to erect
the 42-foot “DC Liberty Pole” to call attention to the lack of political equality for the 650,000 American
citizens who live in DC. Choosing the day federal taxes are due and wearing red Phrygian caps—
symbolic hats historically worn by freed Roman slaves and American colonists resisting British tyranny
during the American Revolution, and pictorially shown on the seal of the U.S. Senate, U.S. Army, and
numerous state seals—the disenfranchised denizens of the nation’s capital began a six-day, nonstop
unpermitted DC Democracy Vigil. They seek to highlight why taxation without representation is
antithetical to American values and to call on Congress to pass legislation that grants DC residents the
same rights as Americans of the 50 states.
Angered by the unethical actions of members of Congress who paternalistically meddle in the lives of
District of Columbia residents, the event will feature workshops and speak-outs to call attention to the
plight of the only Americans who suffer taxation without representation. Unlike citizens of the 50
states who pay their taxes on April 15 and whose elected officials represent constituents’ interests in
the federal legislature, the residents of the District of Columbia are denied the right to elect
representatives in Congress despite being obliged to pay both federal and “state” taxes.
“Consent of the governed is a republican value that members of Congress have forgotten, and we’re
here to remind the 535 members of Congress that we do not consent to taxation without
representation,” says DC Cannabis Campaign Chairman, Adam Eidinger.
Over the years, numerous international organizations from the United Nations to the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe have called on the U.S. government to grant political rights to DC
residents. The U.S. is the only country in the developed world that denies inhabitants of the capital
city the same political rights enjoyed by those who live elsewhere in the country. DC residents fight
and die defending freedom abroad but are denied the right to elect Senators and Representatives
who send them into harm’s way.
In the 214 years that the District of Columbia has existed, Congress has sent two DC-related
constitutional amendments to the states for ratification. One became the 23rd amendment, which
allows DC residents to vote for the President. The second constitutional amendment, which would
have provided DC residents with representation in Congress, was not ratified by enough states and
expired in 1985. Activists contend that if Congress were to send another DC-related constitutional
amendment to the States, it would be ratified.
“During the Revolutionary War colonists donned Phrygian caps and constructed Liberty Poles as acts
of defiance against the British government’s unethical taxation of colonies without representation in
British parliament, and we are here today to harken back to that original era of U.S. liberty, to do
exactly as those brave Americans did, with this vigil,” says Adam Eidinger.
The citizens will use the space around the Liberty Pole as an autonomous free-speech zone and will
hold daily open mics to grant those attending the vigil the opportunity to speak about why taxation
without representation must end immediately in the District of Columbia. Organizers also brought a
sewing machine to assist in the fabrication of Phrygian caps for visitors and decorations for the Liberty
Pole.
The DC Democracy Vigil is scheduled to conclude on Monday, April 20, but may end in arrests before
this date if the National Park Service objects to the vigil.
Organizers are using the hashtag #FreeDC in social media to share updates about the DC Democracy
Vigil.
More information about the DC Cannabis Campaign, which successfully introduced and passed Ballot
Initiative 71, can be found at www.DCMJ.org. The political committee will be disbanded later this
month and convert to DCMJ, a DC-based community group.
More About Liberty Poles
A Liberty Pole is a tall wooden pole, often used as a type of flagstaff, planted in
the ground, and surmounted by a Phrygian cap. The symbol originated in the
immediate aftermath of the assassination of Roman dictator Julius Caesar by a
group of Rome's Senators in 44 BC. Liberty poles were often erected in town
squares in the years before and during the American Revolution. During this
time, often violent struggles over liberty poles erected by the Sons of Liberty
in New York City raged for 10 years. The poles were periodically destroyed by
the British, only to be replaced by the Sons of Liberty with new ones. The
conflict lasted from the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 until the revolutionary
New York Provincial Congress came to power in 1775. When an ensign was
raised on a liberty pole, it was a calling for the Sons of Liberty or townspeople
to meet and vent or express their views regarding British rule. The pole was
known to be a symbol of dissent against Great Britain. During the Whiskey
Rebellion, locals in western Pennsylvania would erect poles along the roads or
in town centers as a protest against the federal government's tax on distilled
spirits, and evoke the spirit embodied by the liberty poles of decades earlier.
The image of Liberty holding a pole topped by a Phrygian cap appears on
many mid- and late-19th-century U.S. silver coins. Source: Wikipedia
More About Phrygian Caps
The Phrygian (pronounced FRI-GEE-AN) cap is a soft conical
cap with the top pulled forward, associated in antiquity with
the inhabitants of Phrygia, a region of central Anatolia. In early
modern Europe it came to signify freedom and the pursuit of
liberty through a confusion with the pileus, the felt cap of
manumitted (emancipated) slaves of ancient Rome.
Accordingly, the Phrygian cap is sometimes called a Liberty
Cap and in artistic representations it signifies freedom and the
pursuit of liberty.
In the years just prior to the American Revolutionary War of
independence from Great Britain, the symbol of republicanism
and anti-monarchial sentiment reappeared in the United
States as headgear of Columbia, who in turn was visualized as
a goddess-like female national personification of the United
States and of Liberty herself. The cap reappears in association
with Columbia in the early years of the republic, for example on the obverse of the 1785 Immune
Columbia pattern coin, which shows the goddess with a helmet seated on a globe holding in a right
hand a furled American flag topped by the liberty cap. The cap's last appearance on circulating
coinage was the Walking Liberty Half Dollar, which was minted through 1947 (and reused on the
current bullion American Silver Eagle).
The U.S. Army has, since 1778, utilized a "War Office Seal" in which the motto "This We'll Defend" is
displayed directly over a Phrygian cap on an upturned sword. It also appears on the state flags of West
Virginia (as part of its official seal), New Jersey, and New York, as well as the official seal of the United
States Senate, the state of Iowa, the state of North Carolina and on the reverse side of the Seal of
Virginia. Internationally, the Phrygian cap is used on the coat of arms of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia,
Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Source: Wikipedia
The DC Cannabis Campaign is the official campaign committee for Ballot Initiative 71. The campaign is a
project of residents from across the District of Columbia, Drug Policy Action, and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps.
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