MIKE GADELL - PROTEST (ESSAY)

​Mike Gadell's work has been published in the Williamson County Sun, Southside Today, Long Story Short, Christian Living in the Mature Years, and Flashes of Fear. He is a Navy veteran and a retired college professor. Born in Florida and educated in Georgia and Texas, he now travels, volunteers, writes, and enjoys life in central Texas, where he lives with his wife of 35 years, Diane.

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Protest
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​“I’ll go with you,” I heard myself saying to my wife, Diane. She’d just informed me that she was planning to participate in the rally at the Texas state capitol to protest the government’s immigration practices and policies at the southern border.
“Really?” Her surprise was evident in her facial expression. After all, I’m the one who’s less engaged if not apolitical, the introvert, the one who agrees with her, but is happy to allow her to be the one who expresses the political views.
The last direct experience I had with a political protest was in Athens, Georgia, in 1968. One of my co-workers had participated in an anti-war demonstration, and lots of protestors had been arrested and carted off in buses to the county jail. My friend’s wife Lynn called me and said her husband had been involved in the demonstration and that he might have been arrested. She asked me to help her find out something.
Lynn met me at the office and we drove to the courthouse, site of the jail. In the meantime, the protests had escalated, and state officials had called up the National Guard. Fatigue-dressed troops ringed the courthouse, facing outward, bayonets fixed.
After parking in a nearby lot, Lynn and I walked toward the main entrance. A young soldier challenged us immediately. “Stay on the sidewalk,” he commanded.
I ventured a few steps toward the door. “We’re just trying to find out if her husband is in there,” I said.
“Back on the sidewalk!” More intense and shouted this time.
I took another couple of steps toward him and could better see his face: probably 19 years old, eyes fully dilated, and really scared. His M-1 rifle was pointed directly at my chest, the point of the bayonet twitching. Only a few months out of the military myself, I recognized the roles as ones that might easily have been the reverse a year ago. I might have been that scared soldier, and I knew what mistakes could happen under such circumstances, as they would, two years later at Kent State University.
Lynn looked questioningly at me. “Let’s go,” I said, turning back toward the parking lot. My hands shook so much I could barely get the key into the door lock.  She later found out her husband had indeed been arrested, and managed to get him sprung with no further harm, but I never forgot that tense moment that stemmed from political protest.
Now I answered Diane’s question: “Yes,” I said, “this is really important.” The images of children being separated from their parents and then being held in chain-link fence cages were too much for me to ignore. This is not how we are to treat other humans.
I kept hearing in my mind Edmund Burke’s quote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The helpless feeling spurred me to take the only action that made any sense: I would join the protest.
I was the one who’d said, “Don’t worry—Trump can’t possibly be nominated.” Then, “Don’t worry—Trump can’t possibly be elected.” Then, “Don’t worry—Trump will do something so egregious that he’ll be impeached before the end of the first year.” Now, I was beginning to worry.
Diane signed me up online with Families Belong Together, the group acting as coordinator of all the other organizations involved. I immediately began receiving emails from the various groups, thanking me for participating and, pointedly, asking for cash donations.
Then there were preparations to make. The emails I was bombarded with from MoveOn.org, Families Belong Together, and various celebrities all encouraged me to bring signs (no stick handles, as they aren’t allowed on capitol grounds), to bring water, and to wear white.
We also needed a transportation plan. Diane had attended this kind of event in Austin before, but I was a protest virgin, so I deferred on various points—usually after some discussion—to her experience.
For example, she had some leftover black Styrofoam poster board that would accommodate a couple of small signs. After some false starts, she settled on the simple message We Care, decorated with Valentine-style hearts. Mine took a darker tone, declaring First they came for the immigrants … and was further embellished with a colorful Families Belong Together poster, printed from one of their emails.
The decision about water involved a compromise. Obviously we had to have water. The forecast was for temperatures in the triple digits, and the rally was scheduled to begin at noon. How much would we be willing to carry, though? We finally decided to take only one bottle each, and hope for a source of more once we got there.
The instruction to wear white was a subject of some discussion. I think the point was to present an attention-grabbing visual of thousands of people all wearing the same color. But there were practical concerns, as well. Diane said her usual practice was to find a spot under a tree on the capitol grounds and sit on the ground—not so great for white shorts. We eventually decided on dark shorts and white shirts for both of us.
My first impulse was to drive our car from our home in the suburbs to downtown Austin and take advantage of a parking garage. After all, it was going to be a Saturday, so the usual downtown traffic congestion wouldn’t be an issue, unless, of course, there were thousands of demonstrators driving around down there. (I had to rethink that one.)
Some friends invited us to ride with them, but we wanted our independence, including the ability to abandon the whole thing if we decided at the time that was the best course. Diane’s a big fan of public transportation, having figured out the train and bus system pretty well. Trains didn’t run that early on Saturdays, so the bus became our default position. We could drive to the northern terminus and ride all the way to the capitol. No parking fees or traffic worries.
Two days before the scheduled demonstration, five staff members were shot to death in their newsroom at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland. The shooting apparently was about an incident specific to that paper, but coming after President Trump had railed about the press being “the enemy of the people,” it gave me pause.
On Saturday morning, we dressed in our chosen whiteness, packed up water bottles, and set out. We drove to the parking lot of The Domain, a large shopping area, where the CapMetro 803 bus waited, idling, with its open doors inviting us in. We purchased a day pass for five dollars for both of us.
On the bus was one other couple with signs. The southbound route first took us through the J. J. Pickle research campus of the University of Texas, whose main campus we would pass closer to downtown. An older lady, another likely-looking protestor, wore a broad-brimmed straw hat.
The bus proceeded down Burnet Road, past the Atomic Tattoo Shop. At the next stop, a young man loaded his bicycle on the rack on the front of the bus. He boarded, wearing his cycling gloves, camo shorts, and a backpack.
At successive stops other little old ladies wearing white and carrying signs and water bottles joined the bus. One sign said Being Mean Won’t Make Us Safe. A man in a Crop Walk T-shirt boarded.
The bus drove us past Birds Barbershop, Flavor Vapors, and the Lamar Middle School Fine Arts Academy. We accumulated passengers at each stop, including some younger people, white earbuds accounting for their fixed facial expressions.
A few stops before we reached the state school for the blind, a young man with a white cane tapped his way onto the bus. He appeared confused about where to sit, as there were fewer open seats now than before. A passenger took his arm in a helpful attempt to guide him to an open seat, and the young man recoiled in fear, almost stumbling as the bus accelerated. Other passengers began using verbal cues to help him: “To your left. Now one more seat to the left. Okay, now sit.” It worked, and he rode with us a few more stops before tapping his way down the steps to the sidewalk at the school.
We drove down West 49th Street. At the next stop, as another group began to board, an older white man’s hat blew off, and a Hispanic teenager wearing a red bandanna around his head chased it down and returned it. This apparent gesture of interracial goodwill warmed my heart, especially considering the nature of the event we were going to. I later realized the boy and man were together, along with a white lady carrying a Families Belong Together sign. Even more poignant.
The bus headed down South Lamar, past Rudy’s BBQ, located conveniently across the street from Austin Heart Hospital. Then onto Guadalupe Street, near the “real” UT campus. More standees on the bus by then, and at some stops, waiting people looked at the crowded bus and chose not to try to squeeze their way on.
When I asked Diane where we should get off, she said, “I don’t know; I usually just follow the crowd.” At the Capitol stop, Diane’s “crowd” exited, so we followed. It appeared to be a walk of a few blocks to the capitol building grounds, where the hordes were gathering. Along the way, we kept an eye out for a likely-looking business from whom to borrow a bathroom, but no such luck. After we arrived on the grounds and met up with some friends, they pointed out that the First United Methodist Church, which we walked past on the way, had opened their basement restrooms to the public. It was a bit of a walk back to the church, but worth it. They even had volunteers stationed in the lobby to monitor the crowds and resupply the restrooms. Diane would later mail a thank-you donation to the church.
Back at the rally, Diane wanted a photo of us with the capitol dome in the background. As we cast around, looking for the best angle, a young Hispanic couple approached. “Will you take our picture?” they asked. We agreed and were amused when they asked if they could hold our signs for their photo, and even more amused when the young lady, just before the photo was snapped, quickly peeked around the edge of the sign she was holding, just to see what it said. We asked them to take our picture, too (after they returned our signs).
We entertained ourselves by reading other signs. There were blatant ones (Fuck Trump). There were personal ones (Proud Great-Granddaughter of Mexican Immigrants). There were argumentative ones (Hate Does Not Make America Great). There were biblical ones (For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me). There were mocking ones (Do ALL Lives Still Matter?). There were political ones (I guess the GOP is only ‘pro-family’ if the families are WHITE?). There was the heartbreaking one carried by a young woman of motherly age (Who Is Kissing Them Goodnight?). Children sat on their fathers’ shoulders waving their own signs.
Various groups identified themselves within the crowd—certain churches with uniform, colorful T-shirts; a labor union marching onto the grounds behind a wide banner; Democrats whose shirts supported current candidates.
Speakers began to exhort the crowd, all to cheers and hoots and waving of signs. We heard from immigrants (documented and un-), lawyers, clergy, all presented in both English and Spanish. A Methodist bishop quoted union organizer Dolores Huerta: “Get off the sidewalk and walk with us into history.”
The bishop concluded by calling forward a group of children of different ethnicities, who, with raised hands, intoned in their high-pitched, sweet voices the familiar benediction: “May the Lord bless you and keep you ….” “Que el Señor te bendiga ….”
Mercifully, there are live oak trees on the capitol grounds, and we jockeyed for position under one of them along the Grand Allée, a wide walkway leading to the south entrance of the capitol building. Diane’s plan to sit on the ground proved impractical—there was simply no room, so we stood. Every half hour or so, the speakers rotated out with musicians of various genres. Pediatricians and other medical personnel spoke about how children can be affected by family separation.
The temperature rose, and sweat ran in rivulets down my back under my saturated shirt. Even in the shade, it was a hundred degrees. I wondered if we shouldn’t be protesting something to do with climate change. After a couple of hours, the crowd’s enthusiasm had diminished, and that was reflected in the speakers and musicians. The heat had sapped our energy, as well, so we decided to call it a day.
            The demonstration ended without the fear I felt 50 years ago at my previous protest experience. The National Guard has been activated in recent years to help protect and manage protest demonstrations, although not the one we joined. That has occurred most often when there were competing demonstrations, with a high potential for violence between the two sides. In our case there weren’t any groups marching in favor of putting kids in cages, although, as ludicrous as that sounds, at this point nothing would surprise me.
On the 803 heading north, a young couple with their nine-year-old daughter sat opposite us. Clearly also protestors heading home, they struck up a conversation. They wanted to set a good example for their child, they said. They wanted her to know that it was all right, when she saw something wrong, to stand up for what’s right. The little girl’s sign, obviously created by herself, consisted of one colorfully decorated word: LOVE.
Back home we watched TV coverage of the protests around the country while Diane posted our photo on Facebook. Reflecting on the day, I wondered what we’d accomplished. The numbers reported on the news were encouraging: Thousands of protestors had come out for the occasion in scores of cities all across the country. We had demonstrated that many of us care. But had anything really changed?
Whether our march caused any change in the hearts and minds of the country’s leaders and decision-makers, I don’t know. I doubt it. But one thing that did change as a result of the day’s experience was … me. Whether or not I agree with their cause, I will forever identify with demonstrators I see in person or on TV. They are in the arena, no longer spectating, working for what they believe is right.
I’m not sure what form it will take—marching, writing letters, making phone calls, or something else—but I intend to be more engaged than before. I will remember and advocate for those who are poor, sick, or oppressed, and I have taken to heart two lessons from the young parents and their sweet little girl on the bus: (1) It’s not only okay but an obligation to stand up for what’s right, and (2) LOVE.