Historical Witness: No Kings Protest
NOTE: this is not any kind of political commentary. It is fair to say that we're living through historical moments, and an expression of one such moment happened close to where I live. Being lucky and privileged enough to be able to witness such historical moment, I wanted to document it for posterity. However, you should not extrapolate any political preference from what you see here - I am very happy to be an observer to a historical moment.
Last Saturday the third "No Kings" protest was organized across the country and, given that Seattle is one of the major metropolitan areas in the US, it had its own protest. As before, it was set at the Cal Anderson Park, a nice little park right in the middle of Capitol Hill, the "bohemian" neighborhood in Seattle. Everything was well organized: there were porta-potties, a stage with sound equipment was set up, there were booths selling little works of art and mementos and, this being Seattle, there were multiple coffee carts. Everything was quite calm and pacific. And crowded: there was quite a lot of people at the park, especially around the stage. It helped that it was one of those beautiful spring days, sunny but not hot.
There were also a lot of costumes and decorations, as you can see in the pictures. Everybody was quite nice and I could talk with a number of participants, and there was a welcoming feeling in the manifestation. Everything seemed quite pacific, but the crowd was energized, especially as they heard some speeches from the stage. It is undeniably a historical moment in the city and in the country, and it remains to be seen on what all this energy will be translated into.