White House protesters seek change, receive little

Peace activist Connie Picciotto spent more than three decades protesting outside the White House, decrying nuclear armaments. Yet, after her death, President Obama in all likelihood didn't have the faintest idea who she was.

“I don’t know if the President is aware," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said of Picciotto's death in January.

Protests on Pennsylvania Avenue, outside the White House’s iconic structure have become a norm since the birth of the Neoclassical building two-hundred years ago. From anti-war protests to climate change to immigration reform, many of the demonstrations attract thousands of protesters from across the country.

Several successfully nudge White House leaders, while others draw media attention. It’s the individual or small group protests, many that have been going on for years, that go unnoticed.

For instance, when hundreds of aviation workers picketed the White House to protest the labor laws of Norwegian Air, people overlooked an old female protester named Jan Chastain, sitting across from the White House fence with an open umbrella in front of her. The umbrella boasted a hand-knitted pie chart showing the expenditure of the federal budget.

“Budget priorities are the root [of my protest],” said Chastain. “Other departments need to kick back the Department of Defense under the table. That’s the big secret.”

Five years ago, after learning about "dark money" that is spent on defense, Chastain knitted the pie chart. Since then, she has been protesting outside the White House, a couple of days every week.

"The [White House] is the best transaction of Americans coming here. Every American who visits Washington comes to see the White House,” Chastain said. “At some point, there will be a tipping point when they [the Americans] will say, enough!”

Like Chastain, many individual protesters strongly believe that they will be able to bring change.

“We will eventually wake up. It’s a matter of time before there is another nuclear catastrophe,” said Craig S. Thompson, 55, who now sits at the historic White House peace vigil, demanding nuclear disarmament and an end to U.S. military intervention in other countries.

Located in Lafayette Square, directly across from the White House, the vigil camp was set up in 1981 by activist William Thompson. Shortly after, Thompson was joined by Connie Picciotto, whose stay at the camp became the longest continuous act of political protest in the United States.

At the peace vigil camp, Craig Thompson spends about 40 hours a week, exchanging his shifts with other activists. They have stayed in the camp in severe weather conditions, getting frostbite at times or laying in sleeping bags. There is always someone at the camp around the clock.

Before joining the vigil, Craig Thompson was a cab driver in New York. He now lives in the Community for Creative Non-Violence’s shelter near the Capitol. He writes emails to President Obama every few months, explaining why he keeps holding the peace vigil. He plans to continue the protest for the rest of his life.