Power to the People: Notes from the Madison Protest Frontlines

Those following the news will undoubtedly be aware of the ongoing battle in the Wisconsin government to pass laws that eliminate collective bargaining power by union workers as a supposed cost-cutting measure. Those impacted would include (but not be limited to) teachers, firefighters and nurses.

On Saturday, in a show of solidarity for the cause, I bundled up against the February cold, grabbed my camera gear and headed for a much anticipated protest in our state capital. Accompanying me were my boyfriend Tim and my sister Nickie, a teacher in the local school system.

We arrived in town in the early afternoon, just as large snowflakes were beginning to fall over the city. As we headed down State Street, the sidewalks became increasingly crowded with people streaming in the same direction until we reached the central nexus of activity: the capital building. We marched around the circle with the enormous crowd as they chanted and waved a fantastic array of homemade signs, breaking only briefly to photograph the crowd and once to warm up inside one of the local coffee shops before heading back out to the circuit.

The following day, I saw an article from Change.org about how protesters in all 50 states gathered in their respective state capitals on Saturday as a show of solidarity for the workers of our state. And of course, there was Ians Pizza in Madison, which provided food to the protesters paid for by donations from around the country and even the world.

I also happened to see an article in Reuters online that called Saturday’s event the largest gathering of people in the state since Vietnam.

I don’t know if the protests will ultimately make a difference in blocking the bill form becoming law. Sharing that moment in time with so many others, however, renewed my faith in our ability to create change and make our collective voices heard, truly one of the best things about the ongoing democratic experiment that is America.

See the Madison Protest photo set on Flickr

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