Shinn the Writer

No Kings

 

I was never one to protest things. In my youth, there were two large protest marches that got my attention, mostly because they were on television. 

 

First came the 1963 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” It featured Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous I Have a Dream speech. That speech, indeed the whole event got the attention of a nation and opened my eyes to the notion that there were things going on in the world that needed correcting. Well, at least I was nudged. And there were 250,000 in attendance. I was not one of them. I was 12.

 

The next was the 1969 “Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam.” It had no real quintessential speech or event. The most memorable moment for me was seeing a group of conservatively dressed, middle-aged people in the midst of the generally young, hippie types. When interviewed, they made the point that many older, less radical folks were fed up with the war and turning against it. It left a lasting impression on me to this day. And like the 1963 march, an estimated 250,000 were in attendance. And like the 1963 march, I was not one of them. Yeah, I was 18, but I still wasn’t fully convinced either way. I’d just started college. I had my student deferment and would sit this one out.

 

Years passed. Decades passed. I was now looking back on my career instead of looking forward to it. It was January 2017 and the nation had just done the unthinkable. President WHO? A protest march was inevitable, and sure enough, one in particular caught momentum, the so-called “Women’s March. It had the great plus that it would not be a march on Washington, but rather would be in several (aka many, many) cities. I looked back on a lifetime of sitting on the sidelines, and the degree to which I thoroughly detested our choice, and made my radical choice. On January 21, I joined the Oakland contingent. I did feel a bit odd joining a “Women’s March,” but it was really the only game in town.

 

Just my one voice among millions worldwide, but for my own sense of who I told the world I was, I had to be there. There were an estimated 60,000 at the Oakland march. This time I was one of them.

 

Yes, it took me until age 64, but this time I was there. Better late than never. Then, three years later, George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Much like the Women’s March of 2017, marches were held at the city level, this time even more distributed. I didn’t have to go all the way to Oakland, but only about two miles to Albany. I never found an estimate of the crowd size. It was certainly not 250,000 or even 60,000. But considering the size of the town, it was large and spirited. Again, I was one of them.

 

Most recently, it was the June 14 “No Kings” march held in over 2,100 towns and cities, attracting over 5,000,000 people angry enough to get off their butts and let their feelings be known. Again, Albany was one of the locations. Again, I was one of them.