Uni-Tea in Philadelphia

Yesterday afternoon I attended the Uni-Tea Rally at Philadelphia's Independence Mall. In the heart of a midnightblue-democrat city, I'm constantly amazed by the turnout of these rallies. I've witnessed numerous anti war rallies at the same location, even at the height of anti war protests in 2006-2007, their numbers never rose above anemic with a distinct lack of pigment in their ranks.

For all involved, this rally was a resounding success. The lineup of speakers brilliantly illustrated the perils we face with a President and Congress hell bent on fundamentally changing this nation. Evan McMorris-Santoro and Jillian Rayfield say differently, but what else could they say? I'm surprised TPM sent two white reporters to document the racial makeup of a teaparty. I'm am happy to note the TPM reporter, Evan Santoro, took to counting the number of patriotic minorities at our rally. His data supports what I've documented for the past 5 years - there are far more patriotic minorities participating in TeaParty rallies than in any Antiwar/Anti-Bush gathering - EVER.

Leete Eaton-White made a great point about our government's out of control deficit spending - she tried some 'deficit spending' the other week with her ATM card and found that the bank would not print more money than what she had in her bank account. If only our government would follow the same basic rule - don't spend money you don't have.

Andrew Breitbart took time to answer questions from bloggers and reporters prior to his keynote speech. He is the champion for the TeaParty movement and is not afraid to take on bullies in the MSM.

I must give kudos to Breitbart for revealing the innate racism in the NAACP and with individuals like Shirley Sherrod. His reporting destroyed the paradigm of white racism against black people revealing an uncomfortable and ugly truth that racism is colorblind. The dude is a frakking hero in my book.

The event attracted motivated individuals and grassroot organizations looking to network. Tea Party rallies have evolved from concerned like minded citizens gathering together for support and knowledge into fun social gatherings for those not busy with other grassroot activities.

Thanks for the post, Starman.

Uni-TEA, the idea of Jeffrey Weingarten from NJ, was organized by three groups, Uni-TEA, Independence Hall Tea Party Association, a tri-state organization (PA, NJ, DE), and TeaParty365 from NY.

We highlighted a number of black and minority speakers for many reasons, though primarily because we wanted Black Americans and other minority groups to understand, contrary to statements by the press and other leftists, we very much want and welcome them to our ranks.

One of Independence Hall Tea Party's spokespeople, an African American, after answering to charges of TP racism by NAACP on Philly Fox 29, was phoned by a black minister who said he hadn't realized Blacks were permitted to join Tea Party groups. That minister joined us at the rally.

Not including the speakers, there was about 35 black people in attendance, which is an improvement from our previous Tea Parties.

Conservatives have 40 to 50 years of leftist lies to erase, that we are racist, being one of the biggest. It will take a while.

This Tea Party was a good START. And we intend to build upon it.

I was just reading the latest Media Matters carp about how the Tea Party has collapsed and wondered if you could provide some rebuttal. They say there were only about 300 people at the Philadephia event.

Then, the first commenter (nerzog) posts a picture of some Klansmen burning a cross. Disgusting!

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201008050003

We collected close to 300 NEW E-mail names. And many of our regulars were in attendance as well as other new attendees who didn't sign up for our T-News Alert. We gave out over 650 programs, and many with spouses or friends (usually about a quarter to a third of our guests only take one program.)

Our Tea Party with the least attendees had 400 to 450, and that was on December 27th, 2009 during the WINTER at our Tea Party commemorating the first Tea party in Philadelphia on 1773. We have never had fewer than that, all other of our Tea Parties being around a thousand or more (1800 April 18th, 2009 and 2500 July 4th, 2009 - perfect weather both days.)

Uni-Tea had tad more than twice as many people as our December 27th Tea Party. There were 200 people at the after party and most people went home after the Tea Party.

The Philadelphia Inquirer was the first to report 300 (and they ALWAYS cut our numbers by more than half), and everyone else, even the National Review seemed to follow suit.

I have contacted the blogger who wrote the above piece. She was there and said she'd fight the 300 figure tooth and nail.

Everyone I know who attended, fervently disagreed with the 300 figure, putting it between 800 and 1000.

After the 102 degree temps we endured at the July 4th Tea Party, we were able to find larger tents which didn't need stakes in the ground (you can't use stakes at Independence Hall). There were several on the periphery with people under them. They held 50 to 75 people (possibly more), all except the tent for the speakers. Most were people who would have been in the center. Besides the deliberate under reporting of the numbers by the Inquirer, it may account for some of the discrepancy.

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