D.C. has been a stressful place to live for the past couple weeks. As the calendar flipped over from July to August, locals suddenly realized that today’s date was awfully close. We’d all known for a couple months that the bigots and bullies who’d protested in Charlottesville last year and who killed a young woman there in an act of terrorism had requested and been granted a permit to protest here. We knew there were counter protests planned. But somehow as August arrived, the stress of that knowledge ratcheted up a hundredfold.

Last weekend, I mulled what my own plans were. D.C. has a very large Black population, among others, and I worried that Nazis would target them in some way. I couldn’t stop the Nazis from coming, I figured; that was their protected First Amendment right. But I figured I could be there to make sure they understood they were unwelcome and to make my neighbors know that their human rights were not superseded by what’s written in our Constitution.

I’m not going to lie. I was nervous. Everyone was nervous. Last weekend’s rallies in Portland did little to allay our fears. It didn’t sound like it had been handled particularly well.

Many locals fled the city, like they would on a long weekend when tourists are likely to annoy. Others declared they weren’t going to go anywhere near downtown in an effort to stay clear of both the protestors and the counter-protestors. There were protests on the Mall and adjacent to the White House, which is where the white supremacists would be in.

Rudi and I opted to join the group who would be by the White House, wanting to make it clear to the Nazis that they were not welcome in our city. And apparently the Nazis got the memo, because only two dozen of them ended up showing up, while thousands of us came out to meet them, to say that their hate would be given no quarter in our city.

I did not have to find out today if I would be brave enough to step between a Nazi and another person, and I am glad. But I showed up believing that might be expected of me, and that was enough this time.

I will sleep well tonight.