On a pavement across the street from the supreme court, school teacher Amanda Stafford chalked the words carefully: “That’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow.”It was a quotation from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a justice more renowned for her dissents than her majority opinions, including on the Bush v Gore case that decided the 2000 presidential election. Ginsburg died from pancreatic cancer on Friday aged 87, the newest jolt to an angry, divided and fragile nation.On Saturday night, as summer succumbed to the chill of autumn, thousands came to mourn her at a vigil outside the court in Washington. Some made speeches. Others sang songs. More joined hands or laid flowers and candles. Stafford paid tribute in chalk.“I wanted to show words that are empowering at a time when a lot of people are feeling worn out,” the 31-year-old from Alexandria, Virginia, explained. “As a woman in a country getting ever more divided, it’s important to come out and make a stand for someone who made this her life’s work.”What is the state of American democracy that one single woman passing away feels like a harbinger of hopelessness?Amanda StaffordLike many others, including numerous mothers and daughters, Stafford was hit hard by the loss of the feminist lodestar.“I broke down crying and went to sit in a park, sobbing. I called my closest girlfriends and we cried together. What is the state of American democracy that one single woman passing away feels like a harbinger of hopelessness? We’re already in a pandemic and losing her felt like the end.”Stafford’s homage was one of many outside the court, built in the 1930s in classical style to project the full majesty of the law, its 16 marble columns illuminated as two US flags flew at half mast. “RIP RGB,” said one banner in the rainbow colours of the LGBTQ movement. “For my daughter,” said another, simply.“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time – Ruth Bader Ginsburg” was written on cardboard sign amid a sea of pictures, candles and flowers. “She kept theology off our biology” was among the acknowledgements of Ginsburg’s support for reproductive rights. More
