Credit:Alison Bauter
The Wisconsin state Capitol rotunda after dark looks much the same as it does during daylight hours these days. Keep the drums and chants, subtract about half the protestors, add in several tired-eyed toddlers and some sleeping bags, and you’ve got the picture.
“I just took all my stuff and moved in here,” says UW-Madison junior Vali Nashat.
Nestled onto a carpet of blankets in a pillow-cushioned corner of the second floor, Nashat says he hasn’t spent a night away from the Capitol floor since protestors staged the first “sleep-in” Tuesday.
While others in the blanket nook settle in with laptops and textbooks, Nashat and a few friends sit on the edge, talking politics and the protest so far.
“It’s so different from other protests,” muses John Lendved, a UW-Madison senior. “At other rallies people come, they yell their chants, and they leave. Here I’ve seen people helping with clean up. They want to help.”
Not only do the Capitol protestors “want” to help, they’re organized and ready to serve. Thanks to several enterprising groups and a lot of cooperative individuals, the Capitol rotunda now boasts garbage collection, recycling, a community food bank, water supplies, lost and found, an information services station, and more.
Much of the organization can be credited to the Information Station, a group that began in
