Recently, someone said to me, “You protest because you are angry and sad about the state of the world.” “That is true”, I responded, “But I also protest because it brings me joy.” If moments of delight and sorrow, hope and despair, beauty and pain are all part of the human experience, then anger and joy can also live beside one another - even at a protest.
Earlier this week, the brilliant historian Timothy Snyder wrote, encouraging everyone who can to gather for the No Kings protests throughout the country. His words spoke to my heart and affirmed my own experience whenever I protest. He wrote in his Substack article “No Kings, Freedom!”:
