‘One of the amazing ones’: Brother of woman surrounded by white supremacists in viral July 4 photo speaks out
TheGrio...
Paul Bowlding says his sister, Bernita Bowlding, was traveling on a train headed for Silver Spring, Maryland, when Patriot Front members boarded, leading to an unforgettable photo that many have proclaimed a future award winner.
One of the most striking images taken during the July 4 weekend, as America celebrated its 250th anniversary, wasn’t a firework display or even a display of American flags. Instead, it was a Black woman, sitting on a train in Washington D.C., surrounded by a white supremacist group.
The image, which photographer Cheney Orr captured for Reuters, quickly went viral online. The image was one of hundreds snapped by Orr to document how Patriot Front, a white supremacist organization, decided to employ a show of force in the nation’s capital after marching through D.C. earlier that morning.
The woman’s brother identified her after seeing the photo, first in disbelief. Paul Bowlding stated that it was his older sister, 33-year-old Bernita Bowlding, seated between the Patriot Front members. Her family became worried when they hadn’t heard from her, as she had previously told them she was taking the train to go from D.C. to Silver Spring, Maryland.
“That’s basically like hounds surrounding her,” Paul Bowlding told The Washington Post.
A mother of two, Bernita Bowlding, found herself criticized online after her identity was revealed, leading conservatives and those aligned with MAGA to search for and discover her arrest record. The lone charge against her was later dismissed. Paul Bowlding said the incident occurred while Bernita was experiencing a mental health crisis and had been battling mental health issues for years.
Her family was relieved when she stopped by her mother’s house on Sunday, as she currently doesn’t have a phone.
Bowlding wasn’t the only passenger on the train that Saturday.
Roswell Encina, who boarded the train in D.C. en route to a Fourth of July party in Maryland, said he felt a bit of fear watching the group of masked men clad in Patriot Front paraphernalia board the train.
“I think I froze a little bit,” Encina told The Advocate in an interview. “At first, I’m like thinking, oh my, who are these folks?”
Bowlding’s family says she’s more than a person who found herself at the center of a photo that generated widespread commentary across the aisle. As her family hopes she continues to receive assistance with mental health challenges, Bernita Bowlding became the face of one of the more striking moments of a day that was supposed to be about celebration. Instead, it also captured how polarizing America feels at the moment.
“One of the amazing ones,” Paul Bowlding said of his sister. “I do see her as a role model of letting people know … ‘It’s going to be okay because God got us.’”