“ As for the snowball snipers, they’ve gotten their YouTube glory. But the place to have a snowball fight wasn’t 14th and U, where many native Washingtonians remember the 1968 riots as well as the historic election 20 years later, a place where people were trying to get to work in the snow, walking in tire tracks with grocery bags rubber-banded around their feet. Sorry if not all of them saw the joy in the moment.
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Snowball fight that led officer to draw gun: Everyone was wrong - washingtonpost.com
(link via tbridge)
I’ve replaced the quote Tom pulled, because this is where the piece went the farthest off the rails. 14th & U was precisely the place to have a snowball fight, to get out from under the crushing weight of history and reclaim it as positive. I was there on election night (which, by the way, was 40 years later, not 20), and it was thrilling. The more positive memories are created there, the more the city recovers from 1968. It has taken the neighborhood 40 years to get out from under those riots. If people are afraid to reclaim the space, it will take much more than that.
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fedward reblogged this from tbridge and added:
snowball fight, to get out from under the crushing weight...history and reclaim it as...
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tbridge posted this
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