Terrified. That’s the word Ken Woodward picks on a recent morning to describe how he felt the first day he stepped out of his car, slipped two 3-foot-by-3-foot signs over his body and started walking along a D.C. street.
Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight
“I’ve never done any activism,” he explains. “I’ve never done anything where I’m breaking the rules or saying, ‘The status quo is not okay.’ I’ve always been one to fall in line.”
As a child, he felt more at ease sitting with unanswered questions in his head than raising his hand to ask them. And later, he joined the military, where he wore uniforms designed to make him blend in and not stand out. He was comfortable with that.
But after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis in May 2020 and protesters started filling streets, Woodward no longer felt comfortable remaining comfortable. He had spent the previous two years intentionally trying to have conversations with people whose backgrounds and life experiences were different from his, and he decided to take that effort further. He called a friend in the printing business and asked him to create two large poster boards with the words: “Black and Brown Lives Matter.”
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
They arrived at Woodward’s house in Germantown, Md., on a Saturday. And on Sunday, May 31, 2020, he drove to the District, hung those signs from his shoulders and started walking.
“There was conviction mixed with fear,” Woodward, who works for the U.S. Navy, recalls. “Both existed at the same time. The only reason I was out there was because of that conviction. I was like, ‘I have to do something, and I don’t have money, I don’t have connections, so what can I do?’”
That day, on his Instagram page, Woodward wrote about his walk and vowed to travel every street and alley in the nation’s capital while wearing those signs. He used the hashtag #EveryStreetDC.
“I want to ensure this message is not forgotten by ANYONE!” he wrote. “As a middle-aged white guy, I can carry this message with little harassment, where others’ experience would be more difficult. If you are in D.C., I will eventually be walking by your place. If you struggle with this message we can talk.”
Maybe you have seen Woodward walking. If you have, you may have assumed he’s a liberal or a Democrat. You may have figured he’s a longtime racial justice activist who has waved signs before. You may have taken it as a given that the words he carries on his chest have long been carried in his mind. You wouldn’t be alone in thinking that, but you would be wrong.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
In that initial Instagram post, Woodward describes his background this way: “I am 50 years old and had my eyes opened to the truth of America’s history in the last few years. 2018 was my first election where I did not vote a straight ticket conservative. I voted for Trump in 2016. I am a U.S. Navy Veteran. I am a follower of Jesus.”
Woodward is an evangelical Christian who grew up not questioning the Church. He’s the child of a Republican who for decades consistently cast his ballot along party lines. He’s a military veteran who, until recent years, never doubted the version of the country’s history he learned or wondered what he hadn’t been taught.
How a teenager got more women of color added to history lessons in one of the country’s largest school systems
“If you check all those boxes, I am not the guy that would be walking a street,” he says. He considered wearing a hat with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan on it during his walks to let people in on that part of his identity, but he decided against it. “It’s not who I am today. This tumultuous change that I have gone through and grown through has undercut and challenged every one of my identities, my primary identities. So, yeah, it’s been a legit upheaval.”
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
When people hold up signs, it is to say something. It is to be heard. But for Woodward, the signs he carries offer him a chance to listen. He calculated the total distance he would have to walk — more than 2,000 miles — and the progress he would have to make each weekend — at least 20 miles — to finish in less than two years. But the one factor he accepted he couldn’t control was the number of conversations he would have along the way and how long each would last. Those talks, he says, are his main purpose for the walks.
Each time he explores a new part of the city, he posts an update that offers a tally of the miles he traveled and glimpses of the people he spoke to along the way. Read one after another, those posts offer a close-up view of a city where people can live for decades and never get to know people outside of their neighborhoods.
Rachel was in her alley taking out the trash and asked what protest I was heading to. She talks to her kids about racism and wrestles with how to talk with her 80-year-old mom. She struggles with wanting peace in the family, being uncertain about having the perfect explanation, and having little hope of her mother changing her mind.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
Gerald paused checking his oil in his truck before a quick trip to Delaware to discuss my project. He recalled being 21 years old driving from New York to DC in his new BMW and being pulled over 8 times without cause. One officer told him that as a cop, he couldn't afford such a nice car. I still don't know how one should respond to such a statement.
Ciiru has a strong Christian faith. She knows the scriptures, but what she hears from the pulpit leaves her with a strong sense that the church will provide more protection for her Black child as an unborn child than when her child is born. This statement shook me.
A White woman was getting into her car, and looked at my sign and said, “yes, but you agree that there must be standards.” I didn't have a category for this statement, it left me speechless, and haunted me for the rest of the day.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
Three Latino guys were cleaning the gutters on the pinnacle of a large home and called out a thank you. I told the guy who was laying spread eagle on the roofline, forty feet in the air, he was far braver than I. His co-worker responded, “we are all brave in different ways” and told me to stay safe.
Stephen “Dusty” Barksdale II was in an alley with his son, Micah Barksdale-Edwards, when they encountered Woodward. Micah, who was riding his bike, noticed Woodward first.
“What does the sign say?” Barksdale recalls Micah, who was 5 at the time, asking. “I believe I read it out loud to him and then Ken followed up and was like ‘Do you know what that means?’ We just started explaining it to him.”
Story continues below advertisement
Barksdale says it’s important his son saw that message come from a White man, “even if he doesn’t understand that now.” That day, he snapped a photo of Micah and Woodward talking.
“It was a joy to crouch down to his eye level and emphasize this truth,” Woodward wrote when he shared the photo on his page. “My heart aches for Micah to know this reality deep in his bones. The world and statistics will harangue him until he believes otherwise. This generation at this moment, must capitalize on the current movement and ensure full equality, safety, and opportunity are delivered to youth like Micah. Anything less means you and I failed.”
Woodward raised two children. One is his step-grandson, whom he has raised as his son since he was a baby. Woodward says his son is Puerto Rican and Black, but it wasn’t until after he graduated from high school that they started having meaningful conversations about race and identity. Woodward regrets that it took so long. He says he once considered himself “non-racist” and now is trying to be actively “anti-racist.”
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
That doesn’t mean he never says the wrong things when it comes to race and identity. He does. That’s part of having difficult conversations. He stumbles. He apologizes. He listens. He reflects.
“This is a way for me to rid who I am of the effects of white supremacy,” he says. “This is getting the poison out of me.”
During his walks, people have thanked him. They also have ignored him, shouted at him and threatened him. Once, he had only 50 feet to go when a man with a massive dog told him to get off his block or he would let his dog loose. Woodward, wisely, left.
He still has to go back and walk those 50 feet. He also has a few more neighborhoods to explore before he covers the entire city, which he expects to accomplish next month. So far, he has walked more than 1,900 miles, burned more than 344,500 calories and spoken with more than 1,220 people.
Woodward says his wife and children wouldn’t want him to start over, but if he did, he would carry a different sign. It would more directly address what he is trying to do within himself and within society.
Carrying that other message also would, he says, “take more courage than I have.”
That sign would read: “Reject the myth of white supremacy.”