Sights and Sounds of 2019 March for Life

Just wanted to share some pictures and movie clips I took at the 2019 March for Life this past Friday, the 18th.  It was a real long day.  I left my house at 6 AM to meet to meet at a local church.  A quick early morning Mass at 6:30 and we were on the bus and off by 7:15.  The bus pulled into RFK stadium parking lot around 12:30.  A bathroom break, a walk to the Metro station, a subway ride to the Mall, and we joined the March by one thirty.  We were not there for the speeches.  We would have to leave the night before to make that.

Here’s a small part of my group trying to gather together before we enter the March.  You want to try to keep the group together so it’s easier to regroup to get back, but really that’s a near impossible effort.  Just casually walking I found myself split away.  As you can see, there was a dusting of snow from overnight.

Our group must have been somewhere in the middle of the procession.  Here’s a picture ahead of us.

Hard to get a picture of the breath and scope of the crowd, but here’s one that shows the width.

Here’s some movie clips.  The college kids were the most vocal, so I made my way into their group to capture these clips.  I think they were from Illinois.

The High School kids were more reserved.  Here’s a group being led in a rosary prayer.

Since I’ve been going it has been a predominantly Catholic gathering and this year seemed more so than usual.  I usually see more Protestant denominations but this year I only caught a couple of Lutheran signs and a Focus on the Family sign, which I assume is Evangelical.  Of course this could just be my perception being limited to a particular section of the procession.

But the signs were great.  Here’s a few that caught my attention.

There were little musical groups along the way.  I was able to film this Pipes and Drums band.

When we got up on Capitol Hill, I could turn around and see how far back the procession went.  Here are a couple of pictures.

That goes pretty far back, and we were in the middle, so similar up ahead.  I don’t know how to estimate crowds, but that is a lot of people.

Finally I want to end with this picture.  This was a group of about a dozen, and at first I thought this was the flag of the Red Cross.  Silly me, I then realized it was the Swiss flag.

I asked a woman who was part of the group if they had come all the way from Switzerland for this, and she responded she had.  And then she said something I will never forget, and later upon reflect it brought a tear to my eye.  She said with a smile in her Germanic accent, “You are an inspiration to us.”  By “you” I took it she meant the pro-life movement in America.  I realized then how across the western world, abortion is the norm and whatever pro-life movements there may be are truly small and defanged.  We are what stand in the way from the barbarity of the innocent slaughter.  To quote Ronald Reagan, “This is the last stand on Earth.”

Back in the bus and on the way home by five.

Home around 11 PM.  A tiring seventeen hour day.  God bless all those hearty souls.  God protect the unborn.