Protesters turn out in cities nationwide for Women’s March

WASHINGTON, D.C. – More than a million women and their supporters thronged enormous protest rallies Saturday in Washington and cities around the world, sending a potent message of defiance to President Donald Trump that promised stiff resistance to any curtailment of rights for women and minorities.

In Washington, D.C., a crowd estimated by the city’s homeland security chief at half a million overspilled its planned marching route, marking one of the capital’s biggest such gatherings in years. The Washington rally turnout appeared to surpass that of Trump’s inauguration a day earlier.

The Washington march also marshaled a show of star power absent from inauguration festivities, with performances by the likes of Alicia Keys and Madonna – with the latter unleashing an expletive-laced exhortation for solidarity that caused live broadcasters to abruptly cut away.

In Trump’s hometown of New York, a crowd estimated at about 250,000 – four times the number expected – surged through the streets of Midtown Manhattan, not far from Trump Tower.

Similar marches were held in 673 other “sister” cities across the U.S. and around the world, including a massive congregation in Los Angeles and large outpourings in Boston, London, Paris and Berlin. Women, with men in close support, gathered from Mexico to South Africa, Israel to Hungary.

“Girl power vs Trump Tower,” read a sign held aloft in Sydney as the crowd chanted: “When women’s rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.”

The day’s rallies brought back echoes of a polarizing and rancorous presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton tweeted her thanks to the marchers, whose ranks included many who had supported her. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., addressing a rally in Boston, vowed to do battle for progressive causes and urged marchers to do likewise.

“We can whimper, we can whine, or we can fight back,” Warren said. “Me, I’m here to fight back.”

The Washington, D.C., marchers came from all over the nation, some on planes, some on charter buses, some in cars after making long overnight drives. The coursing flood seemed to represent the vast expanse of modern America: women and men, white and black, Christian and Muslim, the young and the old.

One small group included three generations of women and girls from the same family, marching together while proudly clutching colorful signs.

Jessica Parker Coleman, 56, came up from Georgia to join the march with her daughter, Amber Coleman-Mortley, 34, and Amber’s daughters, Sofia, 5, Naima, 7, and Garvey, 8.

“When I heard about this one, I wanted to come right away,” Parker Coleman said, adding, “We need positivity back in our country.”

A parade of speakers came to the podium, including Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California and a variety of celebrities. Protesters craned their necks to listen, sometimes tramping through bushes and climbing trees to hear the messages broadcast over sound systems scattered around the area.

The crowd was so massive that attendees began marching before the speakers were done. They paraded informally down Constitution Avenue and past the Washington Monument in a noisy procession broken with cheers and chants such as “Love trumps hate.”

They also carried a seemingly endless array of colorful signs, bearing messages like “My body, my choice,” “Weak men fear strong women” and “Michelle Obama 2020.”

The rallies were organized under the rubric of women’s rights that many fear are imperiled under the new administration. But the march’s platform incorporated an array of progressive causes including health care, environmental concerns and racial justice.

A sea of pink knitted hats – the movement’s signature headgear – supplanted the red baseball caps worn a day earlier by Trump supporters who had come to Washington for his inauguration.

“Yesterday was their day; today is ours,” said Kim Crawford, 53, of Clinton, Maryland.

Of Trump, she said: “I’m not sure he’ll hear our voices, but we’re raising them.”

Organizers – and many of the marchers – said they did not want the event’s focus to be opposition to the new president, but rather on the causes they sought to promote.

While the great majority of the marchers were female, men turned out in considerable numbers as well. Jacob Osterman, 24, traveled from Boston with a group of friends to take part.

“I love and care about the women in my life, and this is a way to show that,” he said. “Women are part of humanity, like all of us. How can anyone not understand that?”

Actress America Ferrera got the rally off to a rousing start, invoking her birth in Los Angeles to Honduran parents.

“It’s been a heartrending time to be both a woman and an immigrant. Our dignity, our character, our rights have been under attack,” she told the crowd. “But the president is not America. We are America.”