Signs Of Our Times: San Francisco Peace Rally Expresses How Most Americans Feel

On Saturday, August 26th, thousands of Californians rallied for a ’Peace, Love, and Understanding” event outside San Francisco’s Civic Center. Tens of thousands of others turned out for a number of other peaceful marches and rallies around the city.

What follows is a pictorial of a dozen of the many signs of our times on display during the unusually hot and sunny day; a day which turned out to be an impromptu 50th anniversary happening in the spirit of San Francisco’s 1967 Summer of Love.

Before the photos below is a video of Bree, the 23 Year old Mexican-American Californian holding a “U Hate Me I Love You” sign. Bree, a human resources manager who lives in San Francisco, said that she started the day fearful of her safety because of the attacks in Charlottesville. But then, with the support of her best friend, she decided to take to the streets to stand up to hate despite her fear. “This is the year 2017; we can make this change!” Bree says, and then, channelling Alan Ginsberg, adds, “Just the idea of love: I feel like it’s really a movement; it’s really going to push us in the direction that we need to be to really understand each other.”

(a version of this pictorial also appeared in The SonomaIndependent.org)