I’m back. I left the march early for a number of reasons, primary among them so that someone else could take my place. Also, that I might report back on what I saw.
On the way down, it was like watching the waters rush down from the mountains after a storm…..a relentless flow of people...coming from all directions….heading to the low-lying area that is Pennsylvania Avenue.
A young couple had a little one in a stroller — maybe six or eight months old — and a sign over his head, saying, “When I grow up, I want to be like these kids,” with arrows pointing both left and right. Other parents brought their grade school kids — and signs — to be photographed with the little guy.
There were kids, kids, and more kids. Kids with their parents. Kids in groups of kids. And more kids, everywhere.
One kid has a sign saying, “Students are everywhere. You can’t ignore or gerrymander us, Trump.”
There was a group of many ages, with a banner, “Iranian-Americans support the March for our Lives,” and, at another point, a woman who may have been of South Asian ancestry with a sign saying, “Tucker Carlson, I am a citizen!”
There was a woman with a sign saying, “I wish my uterus had the same rights as a gun.”
There were people of all races marching and mixing easily, most often in the same groups. There were BLM signs, but all of the ones I saw were carried by white folks.
I tried to meet up with some friends, but as one said, “we’re packed as tight as sardines here at 9th Street, and there’s no way to move around.”
I saw some officers from the MPD Second District, and one looked at the arriving crowd and said, “it’s like a river. They’ve been coming at this rate for a couple hours, and they’re still coming.”
At noon, the crowd had completely filled the entire march area from 3rd Street to 12th Street and was overflowing to Freedom Square in front of the Wilson Building. And, at that point, the arrivals were coming in greater numbers than earlier.
I saw a woman with her dog and bent over to pet the dog and felt a little faint when I got back up. Time to go, I figured. Let someone younger — who came from farther away — take my place.
It took twice as long to get home — salmoning upstream against the still arriving crowd, but, again, there were images that I took in that will remain in my mind and my heart.
“We haven’t tried anything, but we’re out of ideas,” said one young man’s sign.
“NRA, sashay away,” several others gaily proclaimed.
A group of Orthodox Jewish kids in yarmulkes wore blue T-Shirts proclaiming “March for Our Lives” in English and Hebrew, along with “Shabbat Godol” (Great or Important Sabbath)
A couple of pickup trucks carrying anti-gun billboards rolled down K Street, sponsored by “Students from Kentucky,” and “Students from Omaha, NE.”
Nearly an hour after the event began, all available space all the way back to 16th Street was completely full, and the crowd was still arriving. “Still,” I thought joyously, “still, they persisted.”
They were black and white and all other shades of the human rainbow. They were young, very young, middle aged, and old. Native born, immigrants, and new Americans. There were Republicans for Gun Control, and Gun Owners for Sensible Gun Control. And every single one of them was rejecting the status quo and standing up to demand action to stop the slaughter of our children.
Above all, there were the young people, and the parents bringing their school-age kids and toddlers. There were kids everywhere.
The words of Graham Nash fill my heart at this moment, as I think of the children and parents I saw today, and think of those in whose memory this March was held…..I read these words, and without shame, I weep for the truths these words reveal...
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.
And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.
Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
The torch has been passed today to a new generation of Americans. I saw many of them this afternoon, and I take hope and fresh courage in their resolve and wisdom. They are claiming their full inheritance as Americans at a most tender age. They are in full throat to tell the rest of us that the status quo is not acceptable, and that they will no longer be silent as the children of America are being slaughtered by weapons of war.
I say to them, “teach your parents well.” I say to them, “we stand in awe of what you are doing, and we love you more than words can say.”