Thanks; it was just what I needed!

After a day I could hardly get through without dissolving into tears, 

after despairing about the state of our union

and seeing the underbelly of the American populace,

I had significant reservations about going to the Women's March today.

 I commissioned posters from a friends daughters

but, truth be told,

I resented that I was marching AGAIN

for the same damn issues as 

'back in the day' - 

even if the threat seems to have been amped up!

If it hadn't worked then,

why would it be any different now?

What good could a few hundred people do by walking along a street?

It's just walking.

 

But I felt compelled to go and now 

hours later, tired and sore,

I'm ever so grateful I did.

 

The magnitude of the march began to dawn on me 

as I took Metrolink downtown -

packed in like veal!

Everyone very affable and excited;

strangers talking to each other,

all sharing stories, 

commiserating about the general state of things

but, more than that,

talking about our hopes, our dreams of a better world, 

talking about why we were marching.

 

As we emerged from the underground station 

and saw the crowds,

it was the first time IN MONTHS that I felt hope for the future.

 We the PEOPLE

 extended as far as the eye can see

 in every direction

And maybe we were there with different fires burning in our bellies

but we were there;

chanting "Stronger Together" and "THIS is what Democracy looks like".

 

We were there to say YES to many things

but T-rump and his agenda weren't two of those things!

 

 

I even got to shake hands with our Senator, Claire McCaskill

 and thank her for the great job she's trying to do 

during the hearings for the Cabinet of Clowns.

I also watched her shake the hand of every police officer at the rally site,

thanking them for doing a great job with keeping us all safe.

 Knowing relatives were marching in Chicago
made the day even sweeter!

 The euphoria of today will fade.

We'll go back to our lives and forget that we're not alone.

T-rump and His Band of Merciless Men will try to make us distrust each other;

These pictures are all the proof I need;

reminders to call up when the going gets tough.

Thanks, St Louis Women's March; it was JUST what I needed!

 

 Let us go out with a divine dissatisfaction.
Let us be dissatisfied
until America will no longer have
a high blood pressure of creeds
and an anemia of deeds.

Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls
that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort
and the inner city of poverty and despair
shall be crushed by the battering rams
of the forces of justice. Let us be dissatisfied
until those that live on the outskirts of hope
are brought into the metropolis of daily security.
Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast
into the junk heaps of history,
and every family is living
in a decent sanitary home.
Let us be dissatisfied
until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools
will be transformed into bright tomorrows
of quality, integrated education.
Let us be dissatisfied until integration
is not seen as a problem
but as an opportunity to participate
in the beauty of diversity.
Let us be dissatisfied until men and women,
however black they may be, will be judged
on the basis of the content of their character
and not on the basis of the color of their skin.
Let us be dissatisfied.
Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol
houses a governor who will do justly, who will love
mercy and who will walk humbly with his God.
Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall,
justice will roll down like waters and righteousness
like a mighty stream. Let us be dissatisfied
until that day when the lion and the lamb
shall lie down together, and every man
will sit under his own vine and fig tree
and none shall be afraid. Let us be dissatisfied.

Let us be dissatisfied until that day
when nobody will shout White Power!
—when nobody will shout Black Power!—
but everybody will talk about
God’s power and human power.

The road ahead will not always be smooth.
There will be still rocky places of frustration
and meandering points of bewilderment.
There will be inevitable setbacks here and there.
There will be those moments
when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed
into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams
will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted.
The road ahead will not always be smooth.
There will be still rocky places of frustration
and meandering points of bewilderment.
There will be inevitable setbacks here and there.

Our dreams will sometimes be shattered
and our ethereal hopes blasted.

Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on
in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.

Martin Luther King Jr.
Source: Southern Christian Leadership Conference address 16 Aug 1967