by Haleigh Cadd (’21)

I was expecting to encounter one of two things going out in DC on Election Night. One was a warzone and the other was a ghost town. For instance, Ms. Richwine warned us to take water bottles with us in case we got pepper sprayed. We shared our locations with her through our phones. I had a conversation with a DC resident earlier that week, and he mentioned how he remembered cars being set on fire on Election Night in 2016.

The reason I semi-expected DC to be a ghost town was the obvious: we’re in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Who would leave their cozy DC apartments to encounter crowds?

The answer is: journalists, organizations who wanted to draw attention to their cause, and the odd observer. Duncan, Ethan, Jacob, and I made up a small part of the crowd that were odd observers.

The blocks bordering the White House were blocked off. No cars could come in five blocks deep towards the White House. This is where the ghost town imagery came true: we saw a sparse amount of people and zero cars walking to BLM Plaza.

Once we got to BLM Plaza, I experienced a sensory overload. The organizations that were there each had either a megaphone or a loud speaker–or both. They typically had signs voicing their stance. For example, there were four people advertising their stance for nuclear peace sitting on lawn chairs. There was another man evangelizing, holding up a sign that said “Jesus Saves!” He was competing with the other evangelist who took a more passive approach, playing a dramatic monologue of the Bible over a loudspeaker–without a sign. People advertising the BLM movement had a giant sign, with a loud speaker, and encouraging chants through a megaphone.

Journalists were abundant. Some had cameras strapped around them and were wandering through the crowd. Others came with their own camera crews. There were also people dressed as political figures: Kim Jong Un and Trump.

It wasn’t a warzone, and it wasn’t a ghost town: just a group of people who wanted to be able to say they were there, just like us.

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