Assembly & Petition is a project that aims to honestly document and tell the story of protests during a time where media reporting focuses on division, views, and clickbait. My original plan was to publish an e-book with this content, but a book has a cover on both sides - a beginning and an end - and this project cannot end.
When I originally attended a protest in my hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia it was mostly with the goal of just finding out what was going on. The murder of George Floyd by police had swept the attention of the world and the Fredericksburg police had just deployed tear gas on the protesters marching through town. I was able to stay up-to-date with the events through social media, but reports conflicted as to whether or not the protests were violent. The lack of clear information motivated me to go see the protests for myself and to use my camera to tell the real story as unbiased as possible. After listening and talking to the other attendees I quickly realized that I was in-fact biased and my new purpose was to tell the real story of the protesters rather than the conflict that the commercial media sources were promoting. I wanted others to feel what I felt when attending and to learn more about those who were marching. I wanted to bring the reality of the protesters’ life experiences to others. I’ve learned more in my time attending these marches and demonstrations than I ever expected to, and I realized that sharing my photographs from the protests was educating others on the reality that I was experiencing.
Please note, this is merely a sample of my favorites from this project. I hope to find a way to best publish the work in full one day.
Assembly & Petition
Marches for George Floyd
Fredericksburg, Virginia
June, 2020
Protest for Isaiah Brown
Spotsylvania, Virginia
Fredericksburg, Virginia
June, 2021
