Activism in Motion

In the crowd of hundreds marching through downtown the other day, Jessica Parsley was the only activist to recognize Pennsylvania state Rep. Greg Vitali, a delegate to the Democratic convention who happened upon the demonstration.

“Hey Greg!” she shouted. He recognized her from a campaign finance reform meeting, came over and got an earful on why Occidental Petroleum’s drilling in Colombia is threatening the ancestral lands of the U’wa tribe.

It was a moment that said a lot about Parsley and about some of the leaders of today’s protest movements. Like many of them, she is young, mainstream, committed and connected. She is a child of privilege who, like generations of activists before her, fights perceived injustice she herself has scarcely felt.

For the last six weeks a reporter dropped in on her as she made her way from the East Coast to the streets of Los Angeles for this week’s convention. Along the way were successes, misfires and always a cell phone.

“I think Jessica provides a good balance between the masses [of protesters] and the people who aren’t that far out there,” said Kali Coffman, Parsley’s roommate and longtime friend. “It’s obvious that this is not just the people in gas masks in Seattle anymore.”

It was the events in Seattle that motivated Parsley, 28. Long an environmentalist, she made the leap to activist when she saw on television the 50,000-strong protests against the World Trade Organization.

“I realized the movement was up to bat,” Parsley said. “The moment was now.”

She holds a master’s degree in environmental law from Vermont Law School and was employed for two years by the environmental division of the Gap before joining a San Francisco firm that counsels corporations on how to become more eco-friendly. But “environmentally, we weren’t making a difference,” she said. “It was like putting a Band-Aid on a beast.”

She quit and took a sizable pay cut to work for Randall Hayes, the founder of Rainforest Action Network, running the environmental nonprofit’s project on campaign finance reform.

Her business experience and contacts were pivotal, Hayes said. “There were plenty of places I could go to find someone with grass-roots activism experience, but she’s comfortable with the grass roots and the CEOs. She can cross that strata.”

Taking Ideas on the Road

Parsley’s odyssey this summer began in July when she joined a group of about 10 veteran activists called Democracy in Motion. They offered workshops on economic issues and protest tactics in more than a dozen cities from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

The roadshow started in Washington, stopped in Boston and Philadelphia, then headed to Louisville; Lawrence, Kan.; and Denver, among other cities.

Parsley, fueled by frequent doses of caffeine, was constantly in motion. One hour would find her drifting through crowds of protesters, chanting slogans and chatting with allies. The next, she would find a phone line and sit hunched over her laptop exchanging e-mails with activists around the country.

In the midst of it all, she juggled calls to her office and other organizers on her cellular phone.

At the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia last month, she divided her time among street protests, strategy meetings and staffing the Democracy in Motion table at Arianna Huffington’s Shadow Convention.

There, she chatted up potential donors for the cash-strapped roadshow. For hours, she took business cards, shook hands and gave out her cellular phone number.

In the afternoon, she snagged a passer-by wearing a suit and tie.

“We’re taking this movement to Los Angeles next week,” she said earnestly. “We’re trying to get big business out of politics. We need your support.”

Beside him, a young man in the grunge clothing favored by protesters asked who she works for. “Wow, RAN is so cool,” he said. “They’re everywhere.”

Parsley shifted into twentysomething mode. “Totally,” she said, passing him a brochure.

The next day, she was back on the streets hoping to use what she calls the corporate media to get her message out.

“The mainstream media likes photo-ops,” she said.

To that end, several times in Philadelphia she donned a risque outfit, a sort of streetwalker version of Lady Liberty, to embody what she calls the prostitution of American democracy by corporations. She wore a gold Statue of Liberty crown, matching pumps, striped hot pants and miniature “Capitol domes” strategically placed over a star-spangled bikini top.

Once she sneaked into the heavily guarded media tent. With fake $1,000 bills tucked into her thigh-high fish-net stockings, Parsley held a sign saying, “Stop Selling Our Democracy.” Security eventually caught up to her, but not before a dozen cameras caught her act. Though some protesters scoffed and called her outfit politically incorrect, she insisted she got her point across.

Born and raised in Louisville, Ky., Parsley went to public schools and had no thoughts of activism when she left for Emory University in 1989.

Parsley’s father is a Republican and prominent Louisville dermatologist. Her mother, Jacque Henrion, is a collage artist.

In Louisville, where the roadshow crew stayed in the Henrions’ sprawling suburban home, the contrast between the activists--shoeless and unshaved--and Parsley’s affluent roots was stark.

As they sat down to vegetarian lasagna, the activists groaned and made gagging noises while Texas Gov. George W. Bush made his speech accepting the Republican nomination for the presidency.

Parsley’s stepfather, Tom Henrion, ignored his wife’s hand on his shoulder--”Isn’t it time for you to go to bed, dear?”--as he debated roadshow activist Roman Fliegel about the North American Free Trade Agreement.

He said of Parsley: “You can quote me on this. She never should have left that job at the Gap.”

Her family’s wealth helps Parsley’s cause: Though she loathes doing so, she has borrowed money from them more than once.

She also relies on money from her boyfriend, Will Clemens, CEO of the San Francisco-based Internet company Respond.com, who a few weeks ago made a donation to the roadshow.

“Will helps with gifts,” Parsley said, a shadow of discomfort crossing her face. “I would call them gifts. I’m assuming they’re gifts.”

Activist’s Life ‘Is a Luxury’

Her worries reflect those of many activists. In their world, given the money, it’s possible to indefinitely attend a string of protests from Los Angeles to Washington to Prague.

“I don’t really get how these people [other activists] do this,” she said. “Where are they making their money?”

Parsley underscores the solidly middle-class roots of her movement. Following the Seattle protests, national observers repeatedly commented on the protesters’ lack of racial diversity.

Amadee Braxton of the People of Color Direct Action Network in Philadelphia said many minorities don’t have the time or resources to take to the streets.

“It’s a luxury,” she said.

In early July, protesting for campaign finance reform, Parsley was one of five activists who volunteered to be arrested in the Capitol rotunda in Washington. She was charged with several misdemeanor counts of protesting in the building.

Later that month, speaking to an audience in Boston, she said, “It was a blast.” She struck the wrong tone.

The previous speaker, who is African American, had offered chilling detail of his 10 years in a federal penitentiary.

“I think Jessica has been naive about issues of race and class,” said one activist who asked not to be named. “She has said stuff like, ‘Oh if we don’t get the funding we need, we can just pay for it ourselves.’ Not everyone has that luxury.”

After Los Angeles, Parsley will take a week’s vacation with her family and then continue rallying for campaign finance reform.

Although she likes Green Party candidate Ralph Nader for president, in some ways she hopes Republican nominee George W. Bush will win.

“Bush would make some horrendous decisions,” she said. “Then there will be a lot more demonstrations, the nonprofits will get more money.”

Then, she says, her movement will really be launched.