Thursday evening, a go-go band and protesters will gather near the White House to try to drown out Trump’s official RNC acceptance speech with their music and chants. Organized by ShutDownDC, Long Live GoGo, and the Palm Collective, the rally will begin at 9 PM at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest, and the group will slowly proceed around the White House and try to get as close to the South Lawn as it can.
That’s going to prove difficult, though. Right now, the fencing around the White House rivals what was erected in the heat of the George Floyd protests in June, with Lafayette Square and the Ellipse totally blocked off. Event organizers aren’t too concerned. Citing one of their events earlier this week that featured a Go-Go band in front of Postmaster Louis DeJoy’s DC residence, they say go-go group T.O.B.’s equipment has enough oomph to carry the sound far past the fences, and the chanting of the few thousand RSVPed protesters will help.
Even if the go-go beat isn’t heard in the background of the networks’ live feeds, organizers say the mere presence of a large crowd of demonstrators will help to metaphorically “drown out [Trump’s] racist rhetoric.” More information about tonight’s event can be found at this Facebook page.
Jane is a Chicago transplant who now calls Cleveland Park her home. Before joining Washingtonian, she wrote for Smithsonian Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she studied journalism and opera.
