12A — July 3, 2005 NEWSUNDAY MISSOURIAN NEWSUNDAY MISSOURIAN July 3, 2005 — 13A

Michael Ugarte’s father taught him the importance of civil liberties.Francisco Ugarte was working for the U.S. Embas-sy in Madrid when Gen. Francisco Franco, a fascist, came to power after the Spanish Civil War.

Michael Ugarte said that life under Franco was devoid of the basic freedoms Americans enjoy. One of his grandfathers was jailed for resisting the new regime, Ugarte said, and the lack of civil liberties was the reason his father decided to move to the United States in 1946.

Ugarte is in the habit of exercising his freedom to peace-ably assemble, a First Amendment right that he considers “absolutely essential.” He spends rush hour most Wednesdays at Broadway and Providence Road protesting the war in Iraq and stations himself outside the Columbia post office Satur-days for the same reason.

“It is important for citizens to take a public stand in what they believe,” Ugarte said.

This belief has guided his participation in protests against the Vietnam War as well as demonstrations alongside MU stu-dents to oppose U.S. military interventions in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

A citizen “shouldn’t think of government as infallible,” Ugarte said.

In 2002, Ugarte joined 15,000 other protesters at Fort Ben-ning, Ga., calling for the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as School of the Americas, which trains Latin American military per-sonnel in counter-insurgency. Ugarte knew when he stepped over the boundary of the military base with about 85 others that he had crossed the line from legal to illegal assembly.

For Ugarte, protesting a school he considers unjust was more important than obeying the law against trespassing.

Ugarte has lived in Columbia and taught Spanish literature and language at MU since 1979.

He sees a direct connection between having “a love for one’s country” and exercising First Amendment principles. Assembling and protesting, Ugarte said, are ways to be “in your face about what democracy is about.”

— Emily Halonen

When Ellen Wolfe joined a handful of Harg residents around a kitchen table in the fall, they didn’t plan to prevent the City Council from voting on an annexa-tion and development proposal from Billy Sapp.

They only wanted someone to listen to their concerns about how the project would affect their backyards. But the kitchen crew eventually grew to more than 20 residents. Twice, the Harg residents collected enough signatures from Columbia residents to stop the City Council from voting to annex the land, and they earned an audience with the developer.

“Certainly I don’t think we would have been heard if we hadn’t had the ability to petition,” Wolfe said.

For Wolfe, a medical technician at the MU School of Veteri-nary Medicine, the act of petitioning was a welcome introduc-tion to the civic life of Columbia. After sharing the sidewalk for hours with the Salvation Army Santa, the war protesters and her fellow petitioners, she has a newfound respect for her community.

“I just get the general impression that in this community, and in surrounding communities, I don’t think we’re as apa-thetic as it appears on the surface,” Wolfe said.

With the petition as her introduction, Wolfe met hundreds of other Columbia residents who have been quietly concerned about the city’s growth. In exchange for a signature, she offered an audience.

“Sometimes I think, ‘Maybe I’m just out there today to pro-vide someone with some personal support,’” she said.

And sometimes she was out there to provide someone with a spirited debate about the growth of Columbia.

“The more I learn, the more I firmly believe that democ-racy isn’t meant to be everyone in agreement,” she said. “It’s supposed to be loud raucous discussion.”

But Wolfe will tell you that democracy requires more than debate. Two dozen residents from Harg can stop the City Council from annexing land in their backyards, but it takes hours of pacing the icy sidewalks outside the post office and the Activity and Recreation Center.

“There is no limit to what we can do as citizens and a coun-try, but we gotta work and be a little sleep deprived,” Wolfe said.

— Brian Hamman

Normally, the mere sight of a Ku Klux Klan hood incites intense emotions. For Marlon Jordan, it was wearing the hood for the first time that frightened him.“I’d never been so scared in my life,” Jordan said.Standing outside the Columbia Police Department and the

Boone County Courthouse, Jordan, 41, began donning the hood, which he considers a symbol of terrorism, in early 2004 to protest racial profiling. Although he had protested before, this was the first time he feared arrest. He had to keep reminding himself that he is protected by the same right to freedom of speech that has protected Klan members for more than a century.

Jordan wears the hood every Thursday afternoon as he continues his protest at Broadway and Providence Road. But it wasn’t his first form of protest. After Sept. 11, he became increasingly concerned about civil liberties in the United States. He put signs in his car windows and stood alongside other protesters with Mid-Missouri Peaceworks.

The tipping point came in 2002, when he was arrested and eventually convicted of refusing to yield to an emergency vehicle, resisting a traffic stop and resisting arrest. Jordan thought he was a victim of racial profiling, and he wanted to make a strong statement to let fellow citizens know. After catching a Klan documentary on television, he decided wear-ing the hood was the way to go.

“I needed to be visible, to be a voice for myself and my fam-ily,” he said.

The ability to protest in such a strong fashion, Jordan said, gives him a stronger sense of freedom. He said he values the Constitution, especially the rights protected by the First Amendment.

“I want to be able to have that freedom, to say ‘Hey, that’s good’ or ‘That’s not right,’” Jordan said.

Jordan also views his protests as a way of honoring his ancestors and the progress African Americans have made on civil rights. He said everyone should be allowed to make his or her voice heard, regardless of his or her views.

“If you feel like you’re not being treated fairly, you should be able to address those issues,’’ he said “You should be able to let the public know.”

— Cristof Traudes

When Henry J. “Hank” Waters III took the reins of the Columbia Daily Tribune in 1966, he quickly realized the power of the newspaper’s editorials.The stubborn son of the Tribune family wanted his editori-

als to be straightforward and honest with a local flavor. He wanted what he called “weak-kneed politicians” and a closed-minded city government to notice what he was saying.

With a quick scribbling of his pen, Waters decided to sign his editorials with an “I” instead of the industry-standard “we.’’ Waters was the Tribune and the Tribune was Waters. The decision would be a momentous one.

“The editorial was written in the third person, but every-body was reacting to what I was saying,” Waters said. “I didn’t want to be wishy-washy with the editorial. I wanted it to be stand on its own. So, I decided to sign each of them with my own name.”

Waters’ editorials total more than 14,000 during his nearly 40-year tenure at the Tribune. Through the years, he has weighed in on everything from growth and infrastructure to the country’s decision to go to war and all things in between. Waters said his greatest accomplishment is getting people talking.

“I think the most I can do is engage people in conversation,” Waters said. “I don’t want to pontificate. I always have a clear opinion, but too much dogmatism isn’t good.”

The Tribune has been in Waters’ family since 1905, when his great-uncle, Edwin Moss “Ed” Watson, bought the paper for $4,000, Hank Waters said. His father, Henry Jackson “Jack” Waters Jr., took over the day-to-day operations of the paper in 1937. Waters took the helm in 1966.

Waters said his endorsement in 1968 of George Parker, a Republican running for state representative, helped jump-start the Tribune’s now-heralded political coverage.

Waters’ decision to endorse a Republican was so surprising to Missouri’s media establishment that the St. Louis Post-Dis-patch ran a story about how “Little Dixie” had gone red.

“He was the better candidate,” Waters said, “but when people heard the son of a Dixie Democrat was endorsing a Republican, I envisioned my great-uncle turning over in his grave.”

— Derek Kravitz

Shimin Zhuang heard about Falun Gong from the govern-ment-controlled media in China.She wondered why so many people, especially young women, would join a movement that, according to the govern-ment, was destroying China. Falun Gong has been described as a spiritual movement, a pseudo-religion, a religion and an “evil cult.”

It wasn’t until years later that Zhuang realized she had been deceived by communist propaganda.

Zhuang said her English is not good enough to explain what it’s like to live in a country where expressing faith in any-thing but the government is a crime. So she laid a half-dozen newspaper articles on the table and brushed her hand over the picture of a Chinese woman, 37, named Gao Rongrong.

Rongrong recently escaped from Longshan Forced Labor Camp, Zhuang explained, where she had been imprisoned for nearly two years for practicing Falun Gong. She had been subjected to electrical shocks so severe they left her face disfigured and impaired her vision. There were other signs of physical and psychological torture.

Nearly every morning, Zhuang practices Ch’i Gong, a series of exercises that involve stretching, meditation and slow arm movements, at Stankowski Field. It is an integral part of Falun Gong, a religion that emphasizes truth, compassion and tolerance.

Religious freedom is a “natural” right, Zhuang said. She added that many Americans take it for granted.

“When you have something, you don’t notice the importance of it,” she said. “It’s just like air. When we don’t have air, we realize how important it is to life. I think freedom is just like that.”

Since China outlawed Falon Gong in 1999, more than 2,500 people have been killed and more than 100,000 imprisoned in labor camps, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.

“I would like to help the practitioners in China, but I don’t have this ability,” she said as her eyes filled with tears. “The only thing I can do to help them is to tell people about the suf-fering. The more people I tell, the more I can help.”

— Leah Lohse

Assembly Petition Speech Press Religion

Freedom of ... With First Amendment rights being as natural to Americans as breathing air, some argue that citizens take these privileges for granted. These five Boone County residents are examples of people who don’t.

Photo by KYLE COBURN

MICHAEL UGARTE, a Spanish literature and language professor at MU, participates in peace rallies. Exercising his rights is a way to show love for his country, he said.

Photo by KARA BERCHEM

ELLEN WOLFE worked with a group of her Harg neighbors to successfully petition against the annexation of land near their homes that would have been developed.

Photo by KYLE COBURN

MARLON JORDAN often wears a Ku Klux Klan hood while protesting around downtown Columbia against racial profiling by police.

Photo by KYLE COBURN

HENRY J. “HANK” WATERS III is the publisher of the Columbia Daily Tribune, where he has written daily editorials about what is right and wrong in Columbia.

Photo by KARA BERCHEM

SHIMIN ZHUANG practices Falun Gong, a religion illegal in her native country of China. She was cautious not to hold the American flag for fear of persecution.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”