With the Republican National Convention in town this week, a lot of attention is focused on what is happening in and around the convention, including protests, political speeches, traffic jams and highway closures.
But outside downtown, a joyful rebellion is taking place. The Great Milwaukee Block Party is a collection of an ever-growing number of events in opposition to the Republican National Convention, or RNC, and in celebration of Milwaukee joy. There are concerts and workshops, film screenings and teach-ins and everything in-between.
Stephanie Roades is a local organizer, and she has been there for the months of meetings to plan these events. She says the Great Milwaukee Block Party was conceived as a way for Milwaukeeans dissatisfied with the RNC's presence in Milwaukee and the city government's role in bringing the convention here.
"It’s one thing to protest something that happens to your city but it’s a whole different kind of heartache when your city invited it here so we wanted to protect ourselves, we wanted to protest our own city," she says.
The week-long slate of events kicked off over the weekend with a puppet-building workshop. While the word "puppets" may conjure images of the muppets on sesame street, puppets also have a place in political protests. Historically, these puppets often stand high above the crowd and have been a feature of protests in the United States since the 1960s.
At a puppet-building workshop at Tooth + Nail Studio and Workshop, puppet-builder Erika Tucker remembers attending protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999, and the giant sea turtles present there to call attention to the endangered species. Tucker says that puppets' larger-than-life size are great for telling a story or eliciting a strong reaction.
"I love making signs, but the idea that you could have a kind of figure, a symbol, humans have this sort of strong reaction to forms like these," she says.
This sentiment was alive at another one of the Great Milwaukee Block Party’s events this weekend: The RNC protest kickoff benefit show. The show was a punk concert with proceeds going to a fund to bail out protestors who might be arrested while demonstrating. Punk and political resistance go hand in hand, with the genre tracing its roots to nonconformity and anti-establishment messaging about 50 years ago.
Sunny Tummala said he was interested in the show initially to see the bands, but made it a priority to attend after learning about how proceeds would be used. He noted how he felt attending the concert, surrounded by others who shared similar values.
"When you're just in your home looking at this stuff, you feel a little bit alone. But then having the whole crowd out here knowing that we all support some of the same things, that we all want a brighter future, you feel something in your heart and it feels good," Tummala says.
Events will continue throughout the week, and an updated list of events can be found on the Great Milwaukee Block Party Facebook page.
