WEST PALM BEACH – A rowdy crowd of George W. Bush supporters yesterday disrupted a West Palm Beach rally held by some 3,000 Al Gore backers headed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The Gore supporters marched through the posh streets to the West Palm Beach Government Center, where the hand recount of presidential ballots is being conducted.
Along the way, they chanted, “No more Bush-it” and “Revote, revote!”
When they arrived, they found a group of about 250 Bush supporters waiting for them.
The Bushites held up signs to block the stage from which speakers tried to address the crowd.
They also used bullhorns to drown out the speakers with chants of “Jesse, Go Home.”
One of the speakers was Barbara Gilberg, a resident who said she was confused by Palm Beach County’s controversial butterfly ballot.
“I used to teach eighth grade,” she scolded the Bush supporters in exasperation, “and they were better behaved than you are.”
County Supervisor Addie Green shouted from the stage, “Those people who don’t want us to be heard don’t want us to vote.”
There was shoving and angry standoffs in the crush of the crowd as tempers flared.
“It was a violent scene, and the crowd was out of control,” Jackson later told reporters.
Finally, rally organizers urged the Gore supporters to return to the amphitheater several blocks away, where the march had started.
After returning, Jackson invoked the voting-rights struggles of the 1960s, when blacks fought to lift voting barriers set up throughout the South.
“Today, we must not surrender,” he said, after recalling the famous 1965 march on Selma, Ala.
“There are those who want to stop us in our quest for one vote for one person. They will not stop this battle. This battle is about the sanctity of each person’s vote,” he said.
“This crisis is not about electing a president, it’s about democracy.
“Tonight we gather in Florida in the New South,” he continued. “The New South of inclusion where everybody matters.”
Jackson also said, “We cannot export democracy without having an election that is free and fair.
“If we want to support democracy, we must dance to the same music.”