Loose Leaf Notes

About 200 marchers joined about 200 to 300 hundred sidewalk protesters at a four-corner intersection in Christiansburg, joining in the April 5^th HANDS OFF protests that were happening in droves across the country.

The energy was high. For two hours, there was megaphone speakers, cheering and chants and horns beeping in support.

Organized by New River Valley Resist and others, there was a good Floyd contingency.

My friend Kamala had the best sign.

I only have two hands but brought five signs, so I gave some to folks who didn’t have any. “No Dictators in the USA” has gotten around (see HERE).

As I ran around taking pictures, I heard my name called out several times.

I was happy to see long-time peace and justice activists Susan Anderson and Kim Kipling, who headed up The New River Free Press for many years. Here’s what I wrote about that in a 2007  blog post: I first met the Free Press community of activists in 1986 when I was new to Virginia and when the Klu Kux Klan came to Floyd. I stumbled upon the march while downtown and was shocked to realize that the Klan still existed, still recruited, and held marches in broad daylight. Uncomfortable and trying to explain the event to my young sons, I was relieved to see a group passing out protest signs and flyers denouncing what the Klan stands for. They were faces from a neighboring town that I would come to know over the years.” More HERE.

I kept running into people I knew. I hadn’t seen my friend Charlotte, a reclusive artist and past Floyd librarian, in at least a decade. “Isn’t it sad that this is what brought me out,” she said. My friend Steve (to my right), who I also hadn’t seen in ages, got a kiss.

The signs speak for themselves.

Our children’s children know the score.

Love was in the air.

I met this man who is running for a seat in the House of Delegates in a nearby district.

I tracked down a Roanoke Times reporter and offered to speak to him on the record. I found him again later so my friend Karen Baker, Floyd Democratic Committee Chair, could talk to him. She said, “Every week more and more people are coming out… It gives them a way to act… peacefully.” She spoke about how seeing so many people willing to speak out might make others brave enough to do so and recalled how the Vietnam War protests helped to stop the war over time.

We all came together and uplifted each other. It was so good later to see photos from my sisters who protested in Massachusetts and those of friends who went to D.C. to make their common sense voices heard.