The Undead Citizens’ Alliance and its grassroots struggle to raise Zombie awareness
by MARK NOACK
photos by HOLLY LEITNER
Like so many others, Erin Tiel just wants some quality time with her family on Easter. Gathering at Skinner's Butte Park, she holds her rambunctious son Jerome and wipes his face like only a mother can. “My biggest fear as a mother was always a zombie attack,” says Tiel, who nonetheless proclaims herself a big fan of the original Night of the Living Dead. “But even zombies can be family-friendly.” She continues rubbing Jerome's face — not cleaning it, but rather applying grey make-up to the boy's cheeks — giving him a death-like pallor. “Now you'll look like you're from the original Dawn of the Dead,” she tells him as she begins dripping thick red syrup down his forehead and along the side of his face.
She looks at her son satisfied; Jerome appears as if he just crawled out of an auto wreck. His costume finished, Jerome runs over to the playground and up the jungle gym. “I'm a zombie!” he shouts proudly to the other kids.
Along with Jerome and his mother, roughly a score of blood-splattered participants in ripped clothes gathered in the park for the second annual Easter Zombie Walk in Eugene, Oregon. Participants of the event, a “family-friendly” march from Skinner's Butte Park through downtown, spooked and confused Eugene residents — but their main intent was just to have some fun while masquerading as the undead.
The event was organized by the Undead Citizens' Alliance (UCA), perhaps the first-ever political action committee dedicated to achieving greater rights for zombies — a minority group who have been 
“vilified for decades in B-grade pop culture exploitations,” according to the group's Web site. The UCA has organized various zombie events in Eugene over the past two years, even going so far as to stage a phony political protest last year.
“My biggest fear as a mother was always a zombie attack.”
To some, it wouldn't make sense to dress up as zombies and parade around town, but making sense is the last thing that zombie troupes are going for. The idea started in Toronto, Canada, in 2003 with six zombie participants limping through town mimicking the infamous brain-hungry mob from the movies. From there the idea caught steam as a newfangled carnival, like Halloween for young adults, and zombie walks spread to other towns. An event of particular note came in October 2006 when 894 zombies gathered — the largest mob to date — in Pittsburgh and swarmed the Monroeville Mall, the set of the original Dawn of the Dead. Similar zombie mobs have been organized in various cities across the United States and Canada.
“Our intention has been to be ambiguous,” says Dustin Dybevik, who organized a Eugene zombie pseudo-protest last June as a project for an art class. “Part of it was to shock people but also to confuse them to see how people reacted to something that didn't have a serious point.” Consisting of equal parts performance art, flash mob, and costume party, this mock rally involved UCA participants gathering along the government buildings on Seventh street, the typical staging area in Eugene for political events.
Above Left: Zombie Roxanne transforms her doll. Above Right: Zombies gather in front of McDonald Theatre.
Above: Zombies on parade during the Second Annual Easter Zombie Walk.
Below: Four-year-old Jerome Tiel explains his zombie status to kids on a Eugene playground.
The rally participants came to the event either as sign-toting zombies demanding equal rights or as backwater rednecks holding their own counter-protest against the zombies. “The zombies were just moaning, but the rednecks were shouting, 'Down with the dead! Shoot them in the head!'” says Dybevik, adding that most people who drove by the rally had no idea it was all a joke, “We'd have people driving by, honking and shouting: 'Yeah! Impeach Bush!' or 'Get us out of Iraq!'” The two mock-protesting groups held rival — but peaceful — protests on opposite sides of the street. Peaceful, that is, until the end when everyone suddenly clashed in a melee that resulted in the zombies eating all the rednecks.
Most of the other events endorsed by the UCA have been more straightforward. The most popular was the annual Valentine's Day Zombie Walk, an undead bar-hop starting at Pioneer Cemetery at the University of Oregon and weaving through the downtown Eugene dives. Chirstopher Anglin, the primary organizer for the UCA, says that more than eighty participants in zombie garb came out for the 2007 Valentine's Day walk. “We just picked Valentine's Day so we could have some fun,” explains Anglin. “It's the last day you'd expect to see zombies.”
At the Easter Zombie Walk, wearing a formal button-up shirt and nice pants (both smeared generously with blood), Anglin leads the marching group of undead through downtown Eugene. He says that he isn't even a huge fan of zombie films, but zombie-themed events attract more people to come out than other themes. “Zombies suddenly became really hot with all these recent movies,” Anglin says. Plus, he says compared to other costume events, dressing up as a zombie is rather convenient and cheap.
As his posse approaches a group of bystanders outside of Cozmic Pizza, all the zombies stop talking and get into character, moaning and limping menacingly down the sidewalk. “Uggggghhhhhhhh........ brains......” They cross Eighth street and a pair of bicyclists watching them are left perplexed.
“It could be an anti-war protest, a theater group, or maybe the anarchists,” one bicyclist says to the other.
“Probably the anarchists,” his cohort replies.
As the zombies participating in the Easter walk hobble toward downtown Eugene, most people passing are simply confused, but some make it clear they are offended. One pedestrian walks stiffly by the zombie crowd, glaring at them.
“It's just for fun. I've tried to tell people that I'm not mocking their beliefs,” says Anglin. “Some people take things too seriously.” Emily Hunt, a zombie with a prominent blood droplet wiggling from her lower lip, expresses a differing view. “Easter is when the dead rise,” she says. “I think Jesus was the first zombie.”
Moving through downtown, the zombies cross the bus station and several zombies start banging on the windows of the nearby tattoo shop, The Parlour, startling the customers. Inside, tattoo artist Jimmy Singleton watches the zombie mob carefully for a few seconds, shrugs them off, and then goes back to his customers. “It's Eugene — we're used to seeing weirdoes,” Singleton says. “They're actually kinda tame compared to what we see coming out of the bus station.”
