Philly's vigil was among one of the 800 or so peace vigils marking the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war tonight. It started off at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with a couple hundred in attendance. Candles and programs were passed around and a few words were said describing exactly what would be going on.
Philly's organizer was a newbie to activism. He took it upon himself to get involved and he ended up leading 200+ of us for two hours or so. We gathered together and walked down the Parkway to the west side of City Hall. There, another group of folks who couldn't make it to the PMA met us.
Our organizer said a few words about what brought him here and then gave the horn to a man of the cloth who lead us in a moment of silence and then a prayer. Afterwards, they read aloud the names of our fallen soldiers from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. There were quite a few.
The night ended with us all singing We Shall Overcome together. It was nice. There were people of all ages there. Babies, grade schoolers, college students, parents and I'm sure there was a veteran or two mixed in as well. Tonight was about peace, it wasn't a political gathering and he made it very clear at the beginning.
It was announced that tomorrow there will be a gathering [a march?] starting at 2p over by 4th and Arch Sts. If it's not raining, I'll probably be there.
Below are some shots I took. Most were crappier than these turned out, but I was holding a candle trying not to burn myself and I didn't want to use my flash as people were in rememberance.
The start of the evening
They passed out materials for signs
And candles
There were plenty of people there with nicer cameras with nice big flashes and nice zoom lenses. If you see any of their shots, please point me towards them, I'd like to see how they fared.
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