I shot this photo in Washington, DC, on the occasion of the first Women’s March, the day after the inauguration of the 45th President, Donald J. Trump. Shortly before this was taken, I found myself in a sea of women flooding a metro station, politely and patiently ascending the escalator and staircase that spit them out closer to the Mall. The mood was upbeat, unified. They sang and cheered. They chanted. They poured into the streets and moved toward the Mall. The streets near the event stage were already packed—women, men, children, arm-in-arm shoulder-to-shoulder.
It was on that walk toward the Capitol that I took this photo. It was one of the few images from the day that I printed and framed. I’ve kept it on one of my desks. People who’ve come through my office may have thought it an endorsement of impeachment. I did not frame it for that reason, though even back then, I had an educated, odds-were-with-me expectation that a Trump Presidency would be disastrous and untoward. Anyone who watched him for 25+ years, as a unethical businessman and epic misogynist, knew it wouldn’t end well for the American people.
It seemed likely that his Presidential fuck-ups and conduct would be so monumental—unsuited to the job that he is—that impeachment might one day mire and divide the nation. And here we are.
Rather, I framed the photo because it felt particularly iconic for the day. It was more about the women marching than the man many were protesting.
The sign the woman crafted is a bubble-style mailing envelope, cut and splayed open. I know this because the night before the March, I’d followed the Maps app to a local office supplies store, where women had overrun the shop in search of poster board and Sharpies. Everyone in the store, it seemed, had traveled to DC with the hopes of locking down those creative supplies once in town. The store ran dry of sign-making stuff, necessitating the creative use of the large mailing envelopes for sign media. They started selling like wildfire. I even bought one. During the March, I wore mine sandwich-board style. It read: “1st Amendment Guardian” in plain black Sharpie.
The woman in my photo wrote IMPEACH on her splayed-open mailing envelope and walked with confidence toward Congress. Maybe she felt prophetic. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. And here we are.
Gretchen A. Peck 