The pig complained about the lack of vegetarian food, a preferred diet for many forward-thinking activists, and vented against the UNITY2000 board.

"The organizers haven't even tried to stop the scandalous animal slaughter industry," he said.

The deal with the city did, however, maintain peace throughout the day. The only injury occurred when an abortion-rights protester jumped in front of a slowly moving camper which served as headquarters for an anti-abortion group. The religious crowd had spent the day further up the Ben Franklin Parkway in a counter-protest holding "Abortion Kills Children" signs, shouting at UNITY2000 demonstrators, and pointing out communists for passing members of the press.

The rally ended promptly at 4 o' clock so the city could avoid paying police overtime. Sanitation crews came in, sweeping up the littered "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal" signs and pamphlets marked "Living Wage" that detailed the plight of poorly-paid workers.

The Truce

With the beginning of the Republican National Convention on Monday came the end of sanctioned protests and the threat of unrest. A poverty rights group, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), had for weeks been publicizing the March for Economic Human Rights, which, without a permit, brought the potential for mass arrests and police confrontation.

The group gathered in an abandoned lot in derelict Northern Philadelphia at a camp called "Bushville," where march participants and city homeless bivouacked during the week.

The KWRU organizers planned Bushville both as a high-visibility reminder of poverty and a disparaging comparison between George W. Bush and Herbert Hoover. During Hoover's presidency the Depression struck, sending the poor into shantytowns which they dubbed "Hoovervilles" out of contempt for the president. With both sides hoping to avoid any ugliness, KWRU lawyers and police officials negotiated a minute-to-minute truce as the march moved slowly from Bushville's Northern Philadelphia ghetto toward the main downtown thoroughfares connecting Center City to the First Union Center, where the convention would begin that night.