Today was a drizzly, chilly day. I almost didn’t go to the OMNI Peace March, but when the rain cleared up this afternoon, I figured I’d go. Jack-booted police and firehoses wouldn’t stop me from a peace march, but shitty weather will.
It was unremarkable – maybe a hundred people all total were there. We marched from the Walton Arts Center parking lot down Dickson Street to the town center on the square, chanting sporadically. Other than the cop cars escorting the marchers, there was hardly any noticable police presence at all. We were a passionate yet polite group of students, grandparents, parents and children. We stood around listening to various speakers, poets and musicians, without any incident or cause for alarm. My heart was filled with quiet relief. After all, this is Fayetteville. We do this sort of thing all the time.
But beneath that relief was a darker feeling – a seed of worry. Because while it was great that everything went so smoothly, there was no guarantee that it would always be so. How much longer will we be able to do this – marching peacefully in the streets to protest the war, and not being arrested or brutalized by an ever-more-oppressive police force? How much longer will we have this right?
