By Bruce Thompson, North Carolina delegate

Yesterday afternoon, after meeting my new friends from FOX News and receiving instruction for this blog, I made my way to the Colorado Convention Center to attend a symposium entitled “From Fannie Lou Hamer to Barack Obama:  The Impact of the Civil Rights Movement on American Politics.”  Most people do not realize just how many opportunities there are for delegates and others attending a convention to participate in forums on topics such as healthcare, national security, foreign policy and the economy.  The amazing thing about these events is that they bring you face-to-face with our nation’s leaders who actually have the ability to effectuate change related to these issues.

On my way to the civil rights forum, I had my first encounter with the thousands of protestors who have descended upon Denver in an attempt to disrupt the Democratic Convention.  The protestors are not hard to spot.  They are mostly young and are dressed for confrontations with the police with the requisite bandana to ward off the tear gas if things get out of hand.  While they may appear to be unorganized the protest groups have set up websites, meeting sites and master schedules to make their plans for each day and night of the Convention.  It will be interesting to see which events the protestors target the rest of the week.

Once I made my way through the protestors and around the assembled riot police, I arrived at the Colorado Convention Center for the civil rights program which featured Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the longest-serving African American in Congress.  The program was an interesting mix of music and speech.  Famed jazz musician and composer David Amram provided the music joined by several local musicians including The Colorado Children’s Chorale.  The highlight for me was a three movement piece setting the words of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy to music for piano and baritone.  Rep. Conyers then spoke about his observations of the developments in the civil rights movement over the past 44 years.  Rep. Conyers referred to the “thousands of people who are attending the convention, the millions of Americans who are watching and the billions of people of the planet Earth who are hoping that the events this week will bring about the change that our country needs.”

Sitting near that stage, I realized how fortunate I was to be in the presence of someone who has actually lived through the events that I have only read about in the books my brother the history professor recommends to me.  That is one of the many aspects of a political convention that makes it such a unique event in public life.  The spectrum of participants from nurses to members of Congress, from teenagers to retirees and from every corner of our nation provides a cross section of people that can hopefully get together and make change happen.  As Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”  Maybe political conventions provide citizens the opportunity to come together and make it possible for others to no longer be “sick and tired.”  We have become cynical about the utility of political conventions.  However, today convinced me that conventions remain useful and above all present opportunities for democracy to naturally occur.