October 7: FANCY

It doesn’t get any fancier than Pride.

Harvey Milk, riding in the 1978 Gay Pride parade in San Francisco. Milk was the first openly gay man elected to be a SF city supervisor, and he fought to end discrimination against homosexual people in the city. The Briggs Initiative would have made it mandatory to fire teachers and school employees who were gay or supported gay rights. The initiative was defeated in November of 1978, and three weeks later Milk and SF Mayor Moscone were assassinated by a former city supervisor. Milk opened the door for more gay officials and today is hailed as a hero in San Francisco, with several locations named for him.

It’s amazing, isn’t it, how people who were hated in their day are acknowledged as leaders and heroes in the world they helped make.

October 6: HOPE

We all want peace, right? Right?

The “peace symbol” as we know it was created in 1958 by Gerald Holtom for the British nuclear disarmament movement. It is a stylized combination of the flag semaphore letters “N” and “D” but has become a universal symbol for peace. This symbol was born of protest.

October 5: BLADE

(After a photograph of the Sanitation Workers Strike on Beale Street in Memphis, TN, March 29, 1968. Photographer unknown.)

It’s been more than 50 years since the Civil Rights protests, yet here we are. Police might not point their blades at protesters anymore; instead, they use tear gas, rubber bullets, unmarked vans, and Federal secret police to snatch protesters off the streets. We have marched backwards.

There is an exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum that you should see: Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal is an extremely powerful and affecting collection of commentary on race in modern America. One of the pieces rings changes on the signs from this protest, making everyone part of the march against injustice. The exhibit runs through early November. Don't miss it.