Byron Hawkins, 49, is a stocky man with bearish hands, a gentle spirit but scars from his fiery past. He speaks of his early life with a certain fondness of “easy times.” He went to Pattison Elementary in southwest DC when he was a boy. His favorite subject was math because his family […]
John Zangas
219 posts
H-Boy “Homeboy” Poet is a towering slender young man with a few whisks of grey in a curly black beard. His dark unblemished skin is carefully wrapped in a head scarf. His hands are strong with pulsing veins. He wears the clothes he wore last week and the week before, almost never changing. […]
Davinia “Panama” Miles, 42, and her husband, Byron, nicknamed “B”, 49, sit at the corner coffee shop overlooking McPherson square. They find temporary warmth and a place to chat, insulated from the heavy rush-hour traffic. They charge phones and warm their hands, part of their nightly ritual before heading out onto the street and […]
Anthony, 47 years old, is friendly as he greets me in McPherson Square on Christmas. “What have you got for me?” he asks. His companion, “Chico,” is an obedient Pit Bull mix and looks up suspiciously as I go through my bag to find something for him to eat. Chico […]
It’s dusk on Christmas Eve. A white van of Samaritans stops at the corner of Eye Street. On queue the men shuffle to its hatch and line up. She opens its side door at the curb. At McPherson the men linger late into the night, waiting for food, gloves, hats, and tonight’s menu: steamy […]
They occupy alleys and benches, the side doorways of office buildings and dead spaces behind dumpsters. They hobble along sidewalks, looking for change, food and clothing. “Can you spare quarters, dimes, nickels?” A homeless man asks each night near McPherson Park. Others linger near the metro entrance waiting for the van from Martha’s Table […]
Three years ago it would have been unthinkable for a Walmart employee to walk off the job, especially on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. They would have been administratively disciplined or worse, terminated. But that is what happened on November 28 at the H Street Walmart […]
Washington DC 27 November 2014 Thousands rallied in Washington, DC on Tuesday to support the Ferguson, Missouri community following a controversial grand jury decision not to indict White police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black youth. Civil rights advocates urged participants to get involved […]
Medea Benjamin is internationally renown for standing up for the oppressed and against violence and war. The co-founder of Code Pink, Women for Peace, is also no stranger to hostile situations involving law enforcement. But she never expected to be ordered off the National Mall or face arrest if she […]
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the agency responsible for approving interstate natural gas pipelines, compression stations and export terminals, saw more protests and arrests at its doorstep last week than ever before. Every morning, Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) climate activists tenaciously blocked all its entrances, parking garage, and 1st […]
The Great Climate March completed an eight month cross-country trek on Saturday, arriving at the White House. Enviros walked their last leg into Washington DC escorted by nearly 200 people. As they walked from Maryland into DC, the chanted the names of the 11 states they had crossed over 8 […]
They say that the longest journey begins with one step. The Great March for Climate Action took its first steps on March 1 in Los Angeles. By November 1, when the marchers arrive at the White House, they will have taken over 15 million steps. Thirty-four people started in Port of Wilmington […]