[Looking for the True Majority anti-war commercial with Susan Sarandon and U.S. ambassador Edward Peck? Try here instead.]

I am not much of a marcher. I don’t protest or demonstrate. I’m uncomfortable raising my fist and chanting slogans with the crowd. But I do sympathize with the anti-war cause, and I’m tired of not showing my support. So Saturday I grabbed my camera and a few rolls of film and walked down to Constitution Gardens for the anti-war rally and march.

The crowd was enormous and grew steadily. (Newspaper reports say 100,000, which seems accurate to me.) I was mostly impressed by the mix of protestors—Muslims, Quakers, Baptists, and Jews; communists and anarchists; grandmothers, parents and children; Yale and Columbia and Maryland students; masked street theater performers and priests in robes; veterans from the Vietnam and Korean and Desert Storm wars.

Judging by signs and T-shirts, points of view varied widely, but most were reasonable: No Blood for Oil, Books Not Bombs, etc. Along the oil theme, a surprising number of people were unhappy about the US determination to “make the world safe for SUVs.” Groups representing other causes—the ubiquitous Mumia Abu-Jamal, nuclear weapons in North Korea, etc.—demonstrated on the fringes, but didn’t detract from the main event. And, of course, a few conspiracy kooks roamed the crowd: “Bush knew” [in advance about September 11] and, believe it or not, “Who killed Paul Wellstone?”

Althought I couldn’t begin to guess where the speakers were, I could hear them perfectly clearly. Susan Sarandon started out, “As a mother . . .” Al Sharpton kept it moderate, talking of the need for clean water and sanitation. The leader of the striking Longshoremen’s Union threw everyone off with his opening:

“Are we ready to fight?!?”

. . . Does he mean fight the war in Iraq, i.e., go over there with guns and bombs? Or fight the power, fight our leaders as they threaten to send guns and bombs without our consent??? [Scattered, belated Yeahs and Nos.]

“Are we ready to fight?”

Still not sure what he means, but this is a rally, so let’s get rallied! Yeah . . .

“Are we ready to fight?”

Whatever: Yeah!

The International Workers of the World (IWW) set up camp in a grass strip next to Constitution Avenue, with their backs to media vans, positioning themselves as a protest within the protest. Young white people held aloft signs urging the mostly white audience to “Unleash Black Power!” as the megaphoned ringleader taunted his audience, fellow protestors who were mostly just resting on the curb. “You think you agree with me, but . . .” I lost his line of reasoning quickly, but I did wonder why they had bothered coming, if no one there was good enough to join.

I shot three rolls of film. Sometimes I told someone I admired their sign, and asked to take her picture. Sometimes I tried to be subtle and sneaky. By the end of the day I usually just walked up, aimed, and took the shot.

With the huge crowd and a constant stream of people flowing down the paths, I couldn’t tell you when the march started. [A friend told me Monday it left at around 2:00, went up to the White House, and looped back; so many people were in the streets that the front lines had to hold up and wait for the tail to pass before they could reach the starting point.]

Finally I had to get home. I kept looking back over my shoulder as I left, because I was sad about walking out of a bubble of energy and openness into a colder, more closed-off place. I passed crowds of fraternity brothers with beads around their necks, staggering through the Cap City Bar Crawl. A homeless man asked me for a dollar for something to eat. I said he could have it if he’d let me take his picture. He got worried about what he should look like. “Just be yourself,” I said, and he gave me the finger.