It was so exciting to head back to Washington D.C. to lobby for Invisible Children again!
Basically the only time I travel is if it’s something Invisible Children-related. Because, you know, I’m a poor college student and all. I visited D.C. once before to lobby, and made it out to California twice for different organization camps and conferences.
So, of course, I couldn’t miss this one!
I started by driving solo from Michigan to Kent, Ohio. I picked up some friends of friends I had met at an IC event in San Diego. This was literally my first time ever meeting these three people, and we just all got into my car for a six-hour drive.
Luckily, we hit it off really well!
We got into D.C. at 2 a.m. and then slept for literally two hours. We ended up staying with the family members of one of the girls on the trip with us in Maryland for the first night, and then moved to family members of another girl for the second night. There ended up being 30 of — me and a bunch of Kent State students — that came for the weekend, so there was a lot of shuffling and rearranging going on! The family home we stayed in was decorated with framed photos of Venezuelan activists, so it’s totally understandable as to why they had no qualms about housing 30 of us for the weekend.
We napped for two hours and then got up at 4 a.m. to get ready, and took the metro into D.C. to lobby. We met to get our paperwork and undergo training and then were set loose to go lobby with our representatives on behalf of IC for what was called the “Lobby:DC” portion of the trip.
After lobbying, I spent the rest of the day hanging out at the National Mall with the group I came to D.C. with. We were so tired, so we didn’t do much that night. We shuffled around and moved from one house to another house because things were little disorganized, and then went right to sleep.
We woke up the next day to march on Washington! This was the “Move:DC” part of the trip. We went to a gathering to learn more about progress on the LRA and Invisible Children before we took to the streets. It was really cool! The streets were barricaded and we had a police escort so we could march.
Afterward, because it’s Invisible Children of course, we had a huge dance party at the convention center where we had met earlier today to prep for the march.
We went back to the house to sleep afterward, and then got up the next morning to drive back home.
I had to drop my friends back off at Kent State, though, so I made it a point to look for the memorial from the 1970 shootings.
If you don’t know, there’s a photo taken from this vantage point that’s incredibly well-known in the world of journalism.
It was a strange experience to stand here and think about what happened — especially because I was returning from an anti-war lobbying effort. There was a lot of self-reflection that went on.
And, that was it!
