As the third night of curfew went into effect Tuesday, Lake Effect contributor Julian Hayda visited the quiet spaces in Kenosha. He shares his photo essay, "Hidden In Kenosha:"
On Tuesday after work, I stopped at a convenience store to buy a candle. My intent was to drive north 50 miles from my office near Chicago for a peaceful vigil in Kenosha. There, my plan was to join a few hundred others to sing, pray, and share in the complex emotions this time in our country has led many of us to express. For those of us who see the face of a loved one in Jacob Blake, who weep with his faithful family, and fear for their basic human dignity, these kinds of gatherings are the only place where hope can stay alive.
But the moment I crossed the border into Wisconsin, I knew that my vigil would have to be more literal than spiritual. Emergency messages blared on my phone. Every exit off of Interstate 94 was blocked with emergency vehicles. The LED sign above the Mars Cheese Castle declared “civil unrest.” I knew that there were people seeing the unseen. I knew the curfew, like the boards I’d photograph, obscured more than was apparent.
These photos are from the moment of curfew: 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 25. They do not show blood. They do not show faces. They do not show fire. They show Kenosha, hidden. They show how the city looked during the uneasy silence before two people were allegedly murdered in the street by a white vigilante.
With other cameras transfixed to the mass of righteously angry people illuminated on the street before the courthouse, mine looked elsewhere. Like Plato’s Cave, many did not see the huddles of white militias and provocateurs in the shadows, the blacked-out license plates, the boarded buildings beside the burnt out ones, the children at home, and the otherwise vacant properties.
With this, my vigil is a message: In times of rage, grief, and confusion. Look around. What’s hidden?
