Tumwater picketers spearhead boycott of Chevron gas in Thurston County

Protestors lined the sidewalk in front of the Chevron on Trosper Road in Tumwater on Wednesday evening, bearing signs, flags, and a banner that read Free Palestine.

The picket was organized by Palestine Action South Sound to protest Chevron’s investment in Israeli energy– the first demonstration in Thurston County tied to the national Boycott Chevron movement.

“This location is corporately owned, meaning all the profits made go directly to Chevron, not to a franchise owner,” the organization wrote in a news release. “We believe it is important to target corporate locations because of the direct ties between its corporate owner and the vast human rights abuses taking place across Palestine.”

One organizer who asked to remain anonymous said the legacy of Olympia-born advocate Rachel Corrie has driven pro-Palestinian action in the area. Corrie, a member of the International Solidarity Movement, attended Capital High School and The Evergreen State College before she died in Rafah after being crushed by a bulldozer while protesting Israeli operations to demolish a Palestinian home.

“Palestine is a particularly important issue in the South Puget Sound area. The legacy of Rachel Corrie has really, I think, been a driver of a lot of energy around Palestine, and there’s been a really long legacy of really important resistance to occupation, apartheid, genocide.”

They said the picket will happen once every two weeks in Tumwater for the foreseeable future as similar protests develop in DuPont and Seattle.