DC Nurses Hit Streets to Support Arrested Nurses in Chicago

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)DC nurses took to the rainy streets of Washington Thursday in solidarity with occupiers and nurses arrested earlier this week in Occupy Chicago. National Nurses United (NNU) has been supporting occupations across the country in recent weeks by staffing medical tents with local union nurses. On Thursday, nurses led a group of occupiers from McPherson Square down to the National League of Cities offices on Pennsylvania Avenue, weaving through midday traffic chanting “occupy Oakland, occupy Chicago, occupy Atlanta, and never give it back!” listing off the three cities where occupation arrests have taken place. Rajini Raj, a union nurse from Washington Hospital Center, said she was volunteering at the Occupy DC medical tent “because I want to support the occupy movement.” “It’s important for nurses to be here” agreed Ethlyn Cocoran-Grant, also from Washington Hospital Center, “our primary purpose for being here is to care for the people.” When asked what she thought of the arrests of the Chicago nurses, Cocoran-Grant defiantly told Union City “it’s not going to stop us from coming out.” - report/photos by Julia Kann