Fort Jefferson is one of the most sought-after, most soul-soothing camping experiences on the planet. Fewer than a dozen small sites cluster among the scrub trees just outside the entrance to the fort and a few steps from the Atlantic Ocean. What you need, you bring. What you bring, you take out. Food. Water. Gear. There’s no corner store, no takeout delivery — and most assuredly, no cell service or wifi.
History will remember the march as the coming-to-power of Xers and Millennials. Though there were aging baby boomers aplenty in the crowd and at the microphones, the marches around the world saw these elders step aside to open the way for younger women.
On Saturday I march. From the southernmost end of Duval, where Key West tourists line up for their vacation pictures with the big red buoy, to Mallory Square, where those same tourists gather for sunset. It will be the first time I can stand alongside others of like minds and step off to chants of “equality, unity and social justice.” Because, you see, journalists don’t march.
The 2016 presidential election will, on hindsight, be recognized as the precursor to the catalyst that ignites the transformation of America from fragmented, angry and disillusioned into cohesive, collaborative and powerful. America will move away from six decades of tearing down to four decades of building up and then we’ll start the process over.
We will draw the line at the hard-core wingnuts at the fringes. I’m not inviting willful haters to my table. They’re not welcome. Period. We need to do whatever we have to to keep the haters corralled. And we must recognize there’s such a thing as hate born of unknowing.