Supporters of Guido Reichstadter awaiting his release on Monday.

Jacob Fenston / DCist

After spending 28 hours atop the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, hundreds of feet above the Anacostia River in the hot summer sun with no water, Guido Reichstadter was ready to climb down. But first he got out his phone for one more livestream to the tens of thousands of people following along below.

“I just want to leave you with some words from Frederick Douglass who this bridge is erected in memorial of,” said Reichstadter, a 42-year-old father of two from Miami.

“‘Power concedes nothing without a demand,'” Reichstadter said from the top of the Douglass Bridge, quoting a 1857 speech by the famous abolitionist.

Reichstadter made his demand from one of the arches spanning the Anacostia, shutting down all traffic on a bridge that usually carries as many as 77,000 commuters a day. He started the protest shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion on Friday morning, and stayed up on the arch until mid-morning Saturday.

Upon climbing down, he was arrested by D.C. Police and was jailed. Monday afternoon, Reichstadter’s supporters gathered outside the D.C. Superior Court.

“Free Guido!” chanted a dozen or so abortion rights activists outside the courthouse. “Rise up for legal abortion!”

Supporters set off green smoke bombs and waved green bandanas, mimicking Reichstadter’s protest. From the top of the bridge he waved a long green banner and set off green smoke — the color green borrowed from the largely successful abortion rights movement in Latin America.

Reichstadter spent hours live-streaming from the bridge — including an epic, almost four-hour session where he discussed everything from Latin American politics to the books of Ursula K. LeGuin, one of his favorite sci-fi authors, and held lengthy back-and-forths with D.C. residents who joined the video to ask questions and cheer him on.

“I’m a father. I’m up here for my daughter, I’ll fucking die for my daughter,” Reichstadter said in his first streaming video. “I believe there are millions of Americans that love their children to that extent, and so my question for you all is: why are you not in the streets?”

As he spoke, there were hundreds of protesters in the streets outside the Supreme Court and in other cities across the nation. But Reichstadter was calling for something different.

“You go to a protest for a couple of hours, you hold a sign and then you go home — that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about nonviolently occupying the streets of the capital, nonviolently occupying New York City, Chicago, L.A., bringing the function of government and the economy to a halt peacefully, nonviolently, but super duper disruptively. This is what gives you a bargaining position.”

On Twitter, many people responded angrily to his protest. Anti-abortion posters gloated over their victory at the Supreme Court and mocked Reichstadter; others, who maybe agreed with his position, complained about the traffic he was causing by shutting down the bridge.

But many others celebrated his protest, and wanted to help.

As the hours wore on, Reichstadter’s voice became hoarse — viewers on Instagram joined the livestream and offered to bring him water. One offered to bring him a canned margarita. Reichstadter explained he’d brought a bottle of water but it had rolled off the bridge when he first climbed up.

“I want you to honestly probably stop going live because you’re dehydrating the shit out of yourself and you have no water,” one person advised him on the live video.

People peppered him with questions, which he answered. How’s the weather up there? (Really nice.) How do you go to the bathroom? (He didn’t have to go because he didn’t eat or drink.) How do you plan to get down? (Don’t know.)

Another person, a local activist, offered him advice on a lawyer he should call and what to do when he gets arrested.

As the hot day faded into a cool night, Reichstadter leaned back, reclining on a flat spot on top of the arch, with a view of the twinkling lights of the Navy Yard and Historic Anacostia. He said there was plenty of space up there, and he didn’t feel unsafe. In fact, he said, it was an easy climb up and only took about 15 minutes.

A spokesperson for the District Department of Transportation, which oversaw the recent construction of the bridge, said in a statement that the “top priority is always safety” for the department.

“Planning is underway to install permanent measures that will improve safety and security at the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, and ways to ensure all District infrastructure remain safe and protected,” the statement said.

Numerous times during the live broadcasts, Reichstadter became emotional while talking about the issue of abortion rights, his tired voice straining with emotion.

“Women are going to die in this country. Women are going to have their lives overturned in numbers like you’ve never seen it before. That’s why it’s so important that we make the relatively small sacrifice to get out in the streets, to stand up for each other, to stand up for our rights, to stand up for the people we love.”

He talked about his 12-year-old daughter, and said he couldn’t look in her eyes, knowing he hadn’t done everything he could to move people “out of passivity and into action.”

“I don’t want to be on the top of this fucking bridge,” he said. “I’d rather be enjoying a lemonade at home with my daughter and petting some cats. But there’s more to life than sitting on the couch and watching Netflix. When our rights are under attack, sometimes what that means is you got to step up. You got to do some things that are a little uncomfortable.”

Reichstadter admitted not everyone would be able to climb a bridge in protest. He said he worked as a contractor and was able to adjust his work schedule to make time for bridge climbing. He has also been protesting in front of the Supreme Court in recent days, even sleeping outside the court, he said.

On Monday, the crowd waiting for Reichstadter’s release was small but impassioned.

Devona Smith, who came to D.C. to protest from her home in Hawaii, said that her own father was moved by Reichstadter’s protest. “He was inspired and he took to the streets for the first time back home in Hawaii, and I’m so proud of him.”

As of publication, Reichstadter’s release had been ordered by the court, but he had not yet departed the correctional facility where he was being held according to a supporter, media producer Ford Fischer.

Reichstadter says this won’t be the last you’ll hear from him.

“This is just the beginning,” he said, in his final video from atop the bridge. “The Supreme Court has declared war on the people of this country.”

Reichstadter has said that as soon as he gets released from jail, he’ll start work forming an organization “dedicated to highly disruptive, outrageous, nonviolent, illegal, civil disobedience and direct action” aimed at reinstating abortion rights across the country.

This story was updated to add information from DDOT.

Filed Under: abortion rights, douglass bridge, protest,