How New York Protested Mayor Giuliani Back in 1998

In recent months, Rudy Giuliani had been quiet, too quiet… But that all changed with the announcement that the hardline Republican is joining the President's beleaguered legal team with a focus on 'dealing with' Mueller's Russia investigation. Friend of Good Trouble, the photographer Dan Martensen, got in touch with these photographs and his memories of what protesting 'Screwliani' looked like in 1998, back when he was the mayor of a troubled city called New York.

"On September 14, 1998, I was a freshman in college and it was a precarious time in New York City," says Dan. "In some ways, it had never been safer or cleaner, yet in others (especially if you were a person of colour, or poor) it had never been more dangerous, as you often found yourself threatened by the very people who were meant to protect you, the NYPD.

"Giuliani’s brutal 'shoot first, ask questions later' regime had racked up a long list of murders in the city, nearly all of them involving people of colour – the vast majority remain without justice to this day. From the police shooting of an unarmed 13-year-old black boy with a toy gun named Nicholas Heyward Jr, to just months after this protest the shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed black man who was killed outside his apartment in the Bronx, hit by 19 bullets from police who mistook him for a rape suspect from a year earlier.

"The city was burning with anger towards an overreaching and divisive police force, led by Giuliani himself. He earned the nickname 'Adolf Jailliani' and it was clear tensions would remain high unless something happened. Unfortunately, something did. Less than three years later, 9/11 happened and images of Rudy Giuliani parading through the rubble with then-president Bush all but erased his image as a racist and fascist.

“Giuliani’s brutal ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ regime had racked up a long list of murders in the city, nearly all of them involving people of colour – the vast majority remain without justice to this day”

"It’s now nearly 20 years later, and after a couple of uninspired presidential bids, a pathetic string of campaign speeches in support of Trump in an attempt to win favour for a cabinet position, we finally see him reappear as President Trump’s counsel. It's a move that would surprise anyone but those New Yorkers who endured the six years he was their mayor. At this point, all I can say is he’s finally found perfect company: acting to defend the worst, most divisive and racist of them all."

All photographs by Dan Martensen

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