This photo is from the Women’s March, in Atlanta, in 2017 following the election of 2016. I served as a street photographer at numerous protests in those years. They are some of my very best photos. I’ve put some in our safety deposit box because I want my grandchildren, if we get that far, to see them. To know that I had the right to stand there with my female body while traveling at the speed of bike and bear witness.
And now, here we are. More people will protest today across the USA as the law of the land, enacted when I was the age of this child, has fallen and fundamental rights have been stripped. More basic human rights are at risk as well.
The future could be different, starting today, if we would only work together, for once, and exercise our oversized economic power. Women make or influence 80% of all consumer purchase decisions and we can change anything we want right now by voting with our dollars (or diverting it away from that which undermines our agency as humans). Reproductive rights. Climate impacts. Access-for-all in public space. Housing affordability. Elimination of environmental toxins and restoration of the public good — clean water, air, food. Equity, in general. We hold the power at every critical crossroads, if we would just unite, just for a day.
And yet we don’t.
So there’s that.
Traveling at the Speed of Bike 