PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A one-person protest against Russia's invasion of Ukraine has grabbed the attention of drivers and pedestrians passing by on the Ben Franklin Parkway.
“I've been getting a lot of honks, a lot of thumbs up, a lot of waves,” said Brett of Northeast Philadelphia as he raised a huge Ukrainian flag at the corner of 16th Street and the Ben Franklin Parkway.
“Raising a flag, handing out free flags and candy, just trying to lift spirits.”
He also had a large cardboard box In from of him with a sign reading “free flags,“ the kind for which some flagmakers, including one in Philadelphia, had a hard time keeping up demand.
“I ordered these flags online,” he said. “Ukrainian flags are in high demand right now, as you might imagine.”
He recently returned from a humanitarian mission in Poland at the JCC Krakow.
“I was helping Ukrainian refugees,” he said. “I can't sit still seeing everything going on the news. I just feel like I need to do something and take action.”
As he shared those words, Philip Wilson of Manayunk paused to take a flag and offer Brett a donation.
Wilson said he took part in the Ukrainian flag-waving cause because of what he calls “affinity for the people that I love, freedom, and all the pain and sorrow that I know what's going on.”
“I have friends here from Ukraine. I have friends in Ukraine. I have investments in Ukraine,” he added.
Brett said he has family from Kyiv that escaped Jewish pogroms in the 1940s.
“The same people that are taking [refugees] right now from Ukraine are exactly what my ancestors did on my mother's side,” he explained. “All my relatives go back to Kyiv and a few generations removed.”
He said he will continue to wave his Ukrainian flag whenever he can.
“It's just unbearable to watch, and I feel a need to be out here raising awareness,” he said.
“You can’t underestimate the one-person protest. It just takes one person to take action, to inspire another person to take action. That's how change happens.”