Youth climate activist Leah Siegel organizes protest against U.S. Attorney General POLINA ZUBAREV FEATURES EDITOR
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total of 10 protestors sat waiting in front of Attorney General William Barr’s house at six o’clock in the morning. With five days of rigorous planning behind her, junior Leah Siegel was ready to confront Barr. Siegel is a member of the Sunrise Movement, a national organization of youth climate activists. She also founded the McLean chapter for Sunrise several months ago. Throughout her life, Siegel has attended numerous protests—more than she can count—and has remained politically active. “The earliest protests that we started going to were in 2017,” her older brother, Jeremy Siegel, said. “I think, just as a whole, even our grandparents, aunts, uncles— everyone [in our family]—is very political. It’s just something we grew up with.” Siegel admires how protests are public and allow anyone to participate to voice their opinions. “The right to protest is an extremely 16 | FEATURES | OCTOBER
powerful and important thing. [Protesting] connects people to a greater cause and gets the word out about certain issues,” Siegel said. As the founder of the Sunrise McLean chapter, Siegel leads the group and its members. “It’s not a new thing for [Leah] to be a leader. She’s very vocal about almost everything she does,” Siegel’s brother said. “She brings genuinely good leadership to... the McLean chapter and the overall Sunrise Movement.” On Aug. 18, Siegel joined members of Sunrise McLean and leaders of other local activist organizations in front of Barr’s home in McLean to protest. “We specifically targeted William Barr because he does not uphold democracy and justice in our country, even though he is supposed to do that as the Attorney General of the Department of Justice,” Siegel said. Barr, a Republican attorney, is serving his second term as Attorney General under President Trump and has received criticism. The Attorney General’s primary
role is to act as the head of the Department of Justice, which Siegel and other members of Sunrise believe Barr has not fulfilled, especially regarding the handling of the Mueller report. The Mueller report documented former FBI director Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible interference in the 2016 election. Confronting Barr was nothing new for Sunrise. The organization specifically targets high profile figures in order to bring a greater level of awareness to certain issues. “[The Attorney General is] a figure that [people] vaguely know, but it’s not a figure that they pay attention to, so that was also one of the main motivations for the protest,” Siegel said. While the protestors met around 6 a.m., they remained silent for an entire hour to abide by a Fairfax County noise ordinance that Siegel had researched. As soon as the hour was up, the protestors began chanting, reciting speeches and banging pans at high volumes. “The moment it hit 7, [all of the protestors there thought], ‘OK, we can make noise now,’” said junior Clare A’Hearn, who helped Siegel plan the event. “We all collectively were like, ‘We got this— this is the moment we’ve been waiting for to get our message across.’” Barr made an appearance, only to quickly sneak out of a side door of his house to get in his car. He did not acknowledge Siegel or her team. “Around 7:30, he came out of his house and went to his car. At that point, we were specifically...yelling to him, saying, ‘You need to fix this, this is your responsibility, come face us,’” Siegel said. Equipped with a megaphone gifted to
Photos by Clare A’Hearn & Bobby Monacello | Page design by Akash Balenalli
