Eight years after its historic first march, the Women’s March will return to the nation’s capital on Saturday, just before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
advertisementEight years after its historic first march, the Women’s March will return to the nation’s capital on Saturday, just before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The rebranded and reorganized rally took on a new name, the People’s March, as a means to expand support. The Republican takes the oath of office Monday.
Women outraged by Trump’s 2016 presidential victory flocked to Washington in 2017 and organized mass rallies in cities across the country, building the foundation for a grassroots movement that became known as the Women’s March. The Washington rally alone drew more than 500,000 marchers, and millions more participated in local marches across the country, making it one of the largest single-day demonstrations in American history.
This year’s march is expected to be about one-tenth the size of the first, and is expected to be a moment of restrained reflection as many progressive voters feel fatigued, disappointed and hopeless following Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat. The relative quiet was a sharp contrast to the angry outbursts of the first rally, where large crowds chanted demands through megaphones and marched in pink hats in reaction to Trump’s first election victory.
“The reality is that it’s difficult to capture lightning in a bottle,” said Tamika Middleton, executive director of the Women’s March. “It was a truly special moment. In 2017, we had President Trump elected and such an event. “I’ve never seen such vitriol,” he said. That’s what it represents.”
The movement was divided after a day of largely successful protests against accusations that there was not enough diversity. This year’s rebranding to People’s March is the result of an overhaul to broaden the group’s appeal. Saturday’s protest will promote topics related to feminism, racial justice, anti-militarization and other issues and will conclude with a discussion hosted by various social justice groups.
The People’s March was unusual in that “a wide range of issues came together under one umbrella,” said Jo Reger, a sociology professor who studies social movements at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. For example, the Women’s Suffrage March focused on the specific goal of voting rights.
For broad social justice movements like the march, conflicting visions are unavoidable and there is “tremendous pressure” on organizers to meet everyone’s needs, Reger said. But she also said that some discord isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Often what it does is bring about change and new perspectives, especially from underrepresented voices,” Reger said.
Middleton, of the Women’s March, said large-scale protests like those in 2017 are not the goal of Saturday’s events. Instead, the idea is to focus attention on broader issues, including women and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration, climate, and democracy, rather than focusing narrowly on Trump.
“We don’t think of the march as the final game,” Middleton said. “How do you attract people to come up in organizations and politics and keep them fighting in their communities for the long term?”
