Through 50 States in 70 Days (with an American flag)

August 20, 2015 4:45 PM

Through 50 States in 70 Days (with an American flag) [via mefi projects]
posted by tractorfeed (6 comments total)

wanted to show that the flag belongs not just to right-wing politicians, car dealers, and Christian schools, but to all of us, including firefighters, highway or train workers, snowmobile dealers, tour guides, ticket takers, re-enactors, and wanderers, as well as people from history like Mary ‘Mother’ Jones and Sojourner Truth.

Wonderful. I really appreciate this as I often feel like there's an attempt to claim patriotism, and the flag, only for the right. I love this (troubled and flawed) country as much as anyone and it's great that you chose to show that feeling is widespread, rather than reinforcing the efforts of those who try to polarize us.
posted by Miko at 6:59 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

This is just wonderful. Really moving. I love this beautiful country fiercely. I don't love everything about it. But I love it. If Lincoln, and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King loved this country, and saw personally so much more injustice than I see, who am I not to as well?

I guess I feel about it sort of like Carl Sandburg felt about Chicago (my hometown and one of two American cities I love).

Anyway, this is a great project. Thanks for the post!
posted by persona au gratin at 2:24 AM on August 21, 2015

I liked it too. The flag is ours as well. All appropriation is theft.

I'd throw in storied tales about which ancestors bled where and came here from where to make some cash and have some peace, but I had some apple pie for breakfast instead.
posted by mrdaneri at 7:12 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Is there a website? I can't figure out how to make Facebook show me everything. Like, I see a map from September showing they hadn't yet been to the northwest, I assume they're not still on the road, but I only see photos from a couple of those states (nothing from the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington).
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:34 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Is there a website? I can't figure out how to make Facebook show me everything.

No website. I'm not on Facebook, and I really wish the organizers hadn't chosen a page there to represent the project, but it wasn't my decision. We wanted to post in chronological order, but got so overwhelmed by the travel requirements, plus money and time constraints – near the end, we slept in 21 states in 21 consecutive days – that that plan quickly fell apart.

I see a map from September showing they hadn't yet been to the northwest, I assume they're not still on the road, but I only see photos from a couple of those states

When we got through all 50 it seemed silly to show a map completely colored in. The traveling happened (in three segments) between late May and mid-October, 2014. So far 42 states are pictured at the site (no AZ, AR, IA, MO, MT, ND, OR, RI). The others will show up eventually.

Lincoln, and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King loved this country...

In Atlanta, I photographed a father (who turned out to be a minister from Louisiana) and his son standing with the flag in front of the pulpit where MLK (as well as his father) preached. It hasn't been posted yet. We did a birthday post in honor of Abe last February, and he was happy to be included in the series.
posted by LeLiLo at 11:05 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Thanks LeLiLo!
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:22 PM on August 21, 2015