The NRA’s Annual Convention is not normally on my calendar, but neither is a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas that leaves 19 elementary students and two teachers dead. These two events came together this past week, with the NRA convention opening just three days after the tragedy perpetrated by a lost soul who purchased an AR-15 assault weapon for his 18th birthday just days before he opened fire. The dead kids were not scheduled to be buried until after the re-election of NRA Executive Vice-President Wayne LaPierre on the last day of the convention, meaning the atmosphere surrounding the convention was toxic.

Many thought the NRA should cancel the convention, but that would have been a tacit admission that it bears some responsibility for Uvalde and other mass shootings. Given its current leadership, filled with divisive culture warriors, cancellation was not in the cards, but a number of speakers and performers backed out, including Texas Republicans Senator John Cornyn and Congressman Dan Crenshaw, and singers Larry Gatlin, Lee Greenwood, Don McLean (American Pie), and Larry Stewart. Governor Greg Abbott decided to “phone in” his speech rather than run the gauntlet of protesters who would inevitably materialize.

Both former President Donald J. Trump and Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz honored their commitments. There is much debate as to whether Trump is still the titular head of the Republican Party. His appearance was not sold out, with the New York Times reporting that the convention-center hall was at 75% capacity, so maybe he is past his “sell by” date.

On Wednesday, when I saw the heated exchange been Governor Abbott and Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, I knew that the confluence of events meant that Houston would be filled with demonstrators. I booked a flight using frequent flyer miles.

I left late Thursday, arriving at the convention-center-adjacent the Hilton at about 1 AM Friday morning. By 9:30 AM, I was on the street with two cameras in hand.

The George R. Brown Convention Center runs for five blocks along Avenida De Las Americas. Opposite the sleek modern structure is Discovery Green, a mixed-use park, with a cafe, what appears to be a small indoor meeting facility, a high-end restaurant and bar, a fountain where children interact with water sprouts, a large pond, a covered stage, and plenty of underground parking space. It is the site for demonstrations, particularly when the group occupying the convention center is controversial.

Based on their prior experience , the police clearly knew how to keep the anti-NRA demonstrations on one side of the street and the NRA’s members on the other. Orange bicycle racks lined the street, with a parking lane set up for the television crews and other members of the media, who took full advantage of the space.

Unlike Chicago, the Houston Police Department do not rely on bicycles for crowd and traffic management. It’s Texas, afterall, so cops on horses are the order of the day. Apparently the HPD anticipated large crowds and the trouble that could follow, as evidenced by the contingent of Texas State Troopers who played a supporting role.

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Friday—LULAC. I began my day by taking a quick walk along the Discovery Green side of Avenida De Las Americas. MSNBC’s Garrett Haake was prepping for a later remote segment, as demonstrators lining the sidewalk held banners and homemade signs.

Over the course of the weekend, I noticed that MSNBC, CNN, CBS, and several other national outlets deployed crews along the street. Interestingly, these outlets did not display any logos or trademarks. Unless you recognized the on-air talent, you had no idea who owned the equipment. My suspicion: This is another sad outgrowth of the Trump era. Most likely, the network security consultants do not want to make the network’s presence known to volatile people looking for their 15-minutes of fame (before being shot to death by the police or putting a bullet their heads); or to kids looking for a seemingly harmless TikTok moment.

When I entered the park, I encountered banners and a table, all carrying the LULAC acronym—League of United Latin American Citizens—which struck me as a fitting way to begin a day of protest. After all, the vast majority of the Uvalde victims were Latino children.

Little Joe Hernandez, a Grammy-Award winning Tex-Mex star, was among the speakers. As he spoke about the Uvalde victims, he understandably lost his composure. A number of those surrounding him offered physical support until he pulled himself together. People, including children, stood on all sides of Hernandez holding wooden crosses affixed with pictures of the Uvalde victims.

At some point a child-sized open coffin appeared. Crosses with photos lined the white cloth interior, together with a single bouquet of flowers still wrapped in cellophane. A masked Congresswoman Shirley Lee Jackson walked toward the mike, pointedly asking that one of the children stand next to her while she spoke. From a marketing perspective, I fully understood why she made that request. If you are talking about dead children, you want a live one in the frame to demonstrate why urgent action is necessary. Yet, over the course of the weekend, I concluded that the adults who used children as props were exploiting them.

I always have questions when i see children at demonstrations holding signs. Are they present because they believe in the cause, or are their parents indoctrinating them? As someone whose father was big on imposing his worldview on his children, I am particularly sensitive to this issue.

We were in the midst of a heat wave, and there had just been a widely-publicized deadly shooting at a school just a few hours away. I could only wonder what was going through these kids’ minds as they stood for long periods while adults droned on. Not once did I see any child laugh or crack a smile. There was no playful horsing around. These kids were clearly stressed, terrified, or bored. I imagine more than one wondered whether a gunman might emerge from the crowd.

So let’s get the obvious retort out of the way: Yes, I did photograph these children, but I am not promoting a cause. I am documenting events. When I boarded the plane, I expected to capture images of adults hurling epithets at each other, not traumatized children standing on a stage or next to a politician. As Susie Linfield made clear in an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times, photojournalists are charged with capturing images of whatever transpires, not with sanitizing those events.

Friday—The Black Lives Matter Rally. Shortly after the LULAC press conference, my camera signaled that it was overheating. I walked the block and half back to the Hilton, where I headed straight for the large Starbucks in the lobby. After a 30-minute reprieve from the heat, I headed back to Discovery Green for the noon Don’t Look Away rally organized by the local Black Lives Matter chapter and several other groups.

Somehow I managed to get on the stage, positioning myself front and center, as you can see in Annie Mulligan’s New York Times photograph (lower right hand corner, white hair, long lens, seated cross-legged in shorts). Once there, I stood my ground, angling my camera upwards to capture David Hogg (March for Our Lives); Beto O’Rourke; National Education Association President Rebecca Pringle; Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who heads county government; Rochelle Garza,the Democratic candidate for Texas Attorney General; and several others.

Hogg announced a second March for Our Lives event on June 11 in Washington, D.C., with satellite marches around the country. O’Rourke began his speech by remembering the Uvalde victims, singling out 10-year old Alithia Ramirez. O’Rourke criticized the NRA, but he also extended an olive-branch, urging the crowd to seek common ground. If the NRA refuses to compromise, O’Rourke, cautioned, “We will defeat you.”

I was particularly impressed with the charismatic Rebecca Pringle, who jumped from one side of the stage to the other, gesturing wildly, and Judge Hidalgo, who clearly understands her constituency.

I, however, was once again troubled by the use of the 20 or so children who lined the stage. They were clearly distressed. About halfway through the speeches, one of the speakers ordered the children to move to the front so that the crowd could look at them. They reluctantly obeyed the command.

The rally broke up after 90 or so minutes—I didn’t time it—with the crowd quickly dispersing. I eventually retreated briefly to Starbucks, and then went back out to photograph the demonstrators who milled about in the park and stood behind the orange racks lining Avenida De Las Americas.

Saturday—The Proud Boys. On Saturday morning, I headed over to the convention hall, spending about 2.5 hours walking the 14 acres of “guns and gear," also known as the exhibits. I will address that experience in a separate post.

Emerging at noon, I headed back to the hotel to pick up my cameras. Puzzlingly, the NRA prohibited cameras (except for credentialed members of the press, but the time for obtaining credentials had closed before I decided to attend). I would think that an organization promoting gun culture as something positive would want the public to see the NRA’s members in all their glory, but that is not the case. I wasn’t even allowed to photograph on the sidewalk in front of the convention center.

Once I was back on the street, my plan was to photograph the 200 or so demonstrators lining the sidewalk adjacent to Discovery Green, and then head to the Rothko Chapel, with a second stop at the Menil Museum for an exhibit of photographer Bruce Davidson’s work from the late Fifties and early Sixties. But somewhere around 1:30 PM, about 15 to 20 members of the Proud Boys showed up. They wanted to engage with the protesters, and I wasn’t going to miss what might transpire.

I spent considerable time observing these buffoons. I may disagree with many groups, but at least protestors typically have positions on public policy. The Proud Boys, on the other hand, don’t have any sort of policy agenda. Their expression began and stopped at name calling—“faggott,” “trans,” “elites”—and challenging people to take their guns. Most seemed to be in their mid-forties. I assume deep down, the majority are distressed and depressed by their circumstances, which makes them easily manipulable by former President Donald Trump and his acolytes. Think motorcycle gangs from the Fifties and Sixties.

When the Proud Boys arrived, the anti-NRA demonstrators rushed to the barricades directly across from the arrival point. The police immediately stepped in, forming two lines, moving the Proud Boys in the direction opposite from the anti-NRA demonstrators. The Proud Boys then circumvented the police lines, trying to get to the protesters through what might be described as a “back door.” I followed the Proud Boys, only to be met by a horse brigade and a line of police officers. The Proud Boys, apparently recognizing that they were vastly outnumbered, fell back to a shaded area.

During their retreat, one of the Proud Boys yelled over to me something like, “Why are you wearing a mask? Covid is over with!” I wasn’t too worried; there were lots of police around. Then I heard laughter, with one Proud Boy observing, “We’re wearing masks, too.” Of course, I heard shouts proclaiming that the vaccine was for sheep, or some such nonsense.

At that point the police officer in charge entered into “negotiations” with two of the Proud Boys. He advised them that they had to lose the wood poles that held their banners. The two doing the negotiating argued that state statutes allow them to open carry, so why are wood poles a problem? The officer responded that he did not write the law, but that the police would accommodate the Proud Boys if they wanted to exercise their First Amendment rights. He indicated that under no circumstances could he allow the two groups to interact. After 10 to 15 minutes, the Proud Boys backed off, again retreating to the shade. They left after an hour or so.

I ran into the officer a few minutes after the negotiations had concluded, telling him he had done a masterful job of defusing a tense situation. We then briefly talked about crowd control.

At that point, I headed to the park cafe. I encountered children splashing about in a nearby fountain, as well as CBS’s Robert Costa, who was much friendlier than I expected. I then returned to Avenida De Las Americas to see what was happening.

Sunday—The Stragglers. As I expected, Sunday was slow, so I finally headed to the Rothko Chapel and the Menil Museum. The Chapel was a peaceful oasis. No photographing allowed; just quiet contemplation, and let’s face it, the last week has given each of us much to contemplate.

After taking the bus back to the Hilton, I returned one last time to Avenida De Las Americas, where about 75 to 100 diehard demonstrators remained. I am glad I did. I encountered a mother whose 11-year son was shot to death in February of this year, allegedly by a 19-year old when the 11-year old went to retrieve something from the family car parked in an apartment complex parking lot.

Over the years, I have always assumed Anderson Cooper or Alex Witt were reading from a teleprompter when they said to a survivor, “I am sorry for your loss.” But when you are looking a mother in the eyes who lost her son three months ago, those words come naturally. As empty as those words might be, you mean it when you say them. The boy’s mother wore a tee-shirt with his picture on it, together with images of things that were important to him. The mother was a compelling spokesperson for gun reform. Despite her loss, she did not want to eliminate all guns, only to enact reasonable controls. The unwillingness of the NRA to reach the sort of compromise that she advocates speaks volumes. Gun violence sucks.

I then headed to the airport.

Copyright 2022, Jack B. Siegel. All Rights Reserved. Do Not Alter, Copy, Display, Distribute, Download, Duplicate, or Reproduce Without the Prior Written Consent of the Copyright Holder.

Note the images are in approximate chronological order, but some were captured on different days and at different times than the order suggests.