NO KINGS DAY
At 4 in the afternoon six of us drove from Marshall to Asheville to join the No Kings Day protest. We stopped at 828 Pizza for dinner and then parked across the expressway downtown, expecting parking to be impossible near the courthouse where the the event was being staged. By the time we got there at 6:15 the area in front of the courthouse was jammed with people, many in costumes and most with homemade signs expressing their displeasure with Trump. It was almost a holiday atmosphere with everyone excited and amped up. We never made it to the stage in front of the courthouse but could hear the roar of the crowd as speakers in the distance egged them on. But shortly after we got there, with no instructions from anyone that I heard, the crowd in our area began to move and soon we were headed into town in a massive march, filling the street and blocking traffic and being led in one spontaneous chant after another directed at Trump. Asheville is a liberal town and everyone lining our route was cheering and egging us on. Except for one disgruntled MAGA motorcyclist who roared his motorcycle at being blocked there was no one who disagreed with us who made a peep. We were having the time of our lives, taking over the downtown of Asheville and bellowing our disapproval of Trump and chanting about the power of the people. And we did feel powerful.
I took over 300 photographs trying to catch the spirit of the march and put some of them here. I was so busy photographing that I didn’t notice how tired I was but on the last hill back up to the staging area after we made a huge circle through town my 88 year old legs began to give out and when we got back to where we had started I announced that the others could do whatever they wanted but I was sitting still until it was time to go home.
Everyone was jubilant. We were able to express our irritation with what Trump has been doing and being in a huge crowd removed our sense of passively suffering the erosion of democracy. We felt all powerful. It was a great feeling. Power of the People. Everything was going to be all right.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 