It’s not easy for 88-year-old Sue HartDegen to leave her senior living apartment at Thomas Circle in Northwest D.C., but with her oxygen, a “Free DC” sign and two stainless steel pot lids in tow, she steadies herself with her walker and makes her way to a nearby street corner to make some noise.
HartDegen and a few of her neighbors are out there almost every night from 7 p.m. to 7:05 p.m., banging pots and pans.
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They have staged this nightly protest since last August, when the National Guard first arrived on the streets of D.C.
“I can’t go out to rallies,” HartDegen said. “I can’t do those things anymore, but this five minutes of pot banging a block from where I live, I can do that.”
HartDegen said she could not stay silent and that she wants people who see the images of the National Guard on the streets to know D.C. is not a crime-ridden or terrible place to live.
Over the past year, she’s become more accustomed to seeing the Guard members on patrol, but at certain times it still bothers her.
“Why are they here Sunday morning when I go to church?” she asked. “I mean why? This is a completely safe area, especially in the daytime.”
Nancy Groth, another member of the Thursday night protest, said some of the neighbors who can’t take part have hung D.C. flags on their balconies.
“It’s not a corporate decision; it wasn’t the residents’ association. Every one of those flags is an individual who said ‘Yes, I’m going to do this,'” Groth said.
The number of flags has grown over the past year to about two dozen, she said.
The protesters said they will keep this up until the Guard is gone. To mark the official one-year anniversary of the deployment in D.C., they are planning a larger demonstration Monday, with a march starting at Franklin Park and ending at Thomas Circle.
“We love it when cars will honk for us, that makes us feel that we are being seen and heard,” HartDegen said.
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