An estimated 2.5 million people, mostly women, marched today against Trump worldwide. Others protested yesterday. Were you one of them? Share your story, share your pictures and videos in the comments! Or any good photos and videos you’ve run across online.
I think what we’ve got here is a real mass movement.
No trolls or Trump fans in this thread, please.
Marched today in Birmingham AL. There was an excellent turnout and a great variety of protesters but everyone was getting along great. I was happy to see a nice swath of age ranges there, as well as quite a few men among the crowd. There was even a woman who was born when the Voting Rights act was passed and was there to protest with us.
There were a number of speakers beforehand representing various groups for social change, including the mayor which surprised me a bit (in a good way). It was very organized and very peaceful.
All in all, it made my faith in humanity rise for the first time in months.
Went to Cardiff, as I’d bought my ticket before discovering there were marches in closer places (and apparently even a few people in my little city). Crowd was probably circa 1000, bigger than I’d expected, and I was too far away to hear any of the speakers, but I did hear when they (being Welsh) started singing:
https://twitter.com/NakedTrust/status/822809286208319489
AFAIK we didn’t have any big name performers, though Charlotte Church was apparently in the crowd with a funny sign.
Only saw one jovial cop.
I tweeted some of my pics and thoughts, and got some Twitter rando replying something like ‘it’s a shame you don’t take to the street to protest [bad things some people bigots hate do]’, and I just tweeted back ‘I hope you do!’
My favourite sign (not from Cardiff):
https://twitter.com/skaufman4050/status/822858949003268096
Oh, and best concept:
https://twitter.com/emwilco/status/822779746216005634
I wonder how all this will be framed/spun.
Unfortunately, my nearest march is 170 km of outback away and I don’t have any transport, but I printed out a bunch of links to the various things Trump’s done, from the Putin palliness to the child rape accusations, and just got back from pinning them up around town. Close enough.
http://i.imgur.com/LG25hoj.png
At the London UK march, somewhere vaguely towards the back of a crowd so big and so tightly packed that for quite a lot of the time it wasn’t really possible to move … and even so, there were a steady stream of people still arriving from the route and trying to get into Trafalgar Square.
Estimated attendance 100k.
(not sure if this will post; if not, apologies for the blank!)
Took ages to even get into Grosvenor Square (which probably puts me about 10k people behind rugbyogi and weatherwax) and the road took us past the Argentinial embassy, so we had a little parenthetical protest on the way.
I just got back from the Los Angeles march. I don’t think accurate attendance numbers are in yet, but WAY more than anyone expected! The subways were PACKED. Let that sink in…in LOS ANGELES, the PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION was PACKED. They were running extra Red Line trains, an average of one every five minutes…still packed.
And yet 100% peaceful as far as I could tell. There were a handful of counter-protestors, but they didn’t start anything. Lots of pink hats, and not just on the gals. Lots of hopeful chanting in both English and Spanish. DIVERSITY galore.
I grouse a lot about this town, but today I was actually glad to be an Angelena.
… from your descriptions, I reckon I must have been a good 10k people behind you at the very least, weatherwax and rugbyogi! 🙂
I went to a rally in Pasadena and then planned to come home. I had an evening event and knew I could not manage the march in LA and also the thing in the evening (oh, ok, it’s the opera), plus I am very bad with crowds. The Pasadena crowd was pretty big and then the lines at the Metro station to go into LA were NUTS. How nuts? Well, I could barely fit into the car going back home, and I was really puzzled about all these people going to Azusa, until I realized that they were riding to the end of the line so they could get on the next incoming train because all the Metro cars were full. Metro added extra-long train cars, but it didn’t matter.
My friends from the Harry Potter club who went said they could barely move. They all wore “Hermione” and “SPEW” shirts.
There are estimates of 750,000 people. Link to NBC Los Angeles article.
Trump said there “must have been a million and a half people” at his inauguration. He is, as usual, delusional.
We happened to go past the Argentinian embassy on the way into Grosvenor Square …
http://buildingsights.net/amigos/marcha-2017.jpg
Just got back from downtown San Diego for our march. Was a trip and a half actually getting downtown, since our public transportation is pretty limited, and the trolleys were inevitably crowded; my family made it down about ten minutes before the march actually started. Was a bit worried about the weather (we’ve been having minor flooding, with more promised to come), but after a bit of sprinkling (and a couple interspersed minutes of more intense rain), the sun came out and stayed out.
It was pretty heartening seeing so many people out, and I loved seeing all the signs (personal favorite: someone drew a stylized version of Bree Newsom taking down the Confederate flag). My parents and I didn’t quite make it to the endpoint of the march; we stopped a few blocks down from the county administration building to rest and eat lunch, then figure out how the heck we were going to get back home.
Apparently we had about 30,000 people march, three times as many as RSVP’d. Definitely something I needed to know, after the current white house news… >_>
I marched in my very red state, big turn out, no counter protesters great speakers. Lots of online trolls on the news websites, though — all that whining and complaining about how everyone else should stop complaining is pretty funny.
I’m on my way home after marching in the Women’s March in Honolulu. I heard that at the same time there was another march related to protesting against Trump at U.H. at the same time. Plus a protest at the Trump hotel.
I don’t think I can post pictures here since they’re of other people. But despite the rain and wind I feel it was a success.
There were speeches given about women’s rights, education, healthcare (especially Planned Parenthood), and also the plight of the native Hawaiians, especially after the recent news of Mark Zuckerberg suing to buy hundreds of acres of Kauai.
Couldn’t quite make myself go to the closest protest, but thirteen of my hats went down to DC (assuming the designated hat transporter didn’t forget the bag). So I am not there, but some strands of my hair (it’s long and tends to get knit in by accident) made the trip. Waiting to hear about it, and hoping someone got pictures.
Roughly 1 person in 20 in the Portland metro area turned up for the march, which overspilled the park and filled transit downtown to the brim. One friend couldn’t get on a bus due to crowding, but a passing protester offered to share her uber.
From the Trenton march:
Women’s March on New Jersey in Trenton
Oops, should have checked to see if there was a new thread! As I said in the other one, this was my first march. There were so many people! Apparently 60 thousand?
Here’s a video of some of the Toronto march.
I took photos, but I’m hesitant about sharing them online as some have faces very clearly shown. Which is too bad, because I took a panorama of Nathan Phillips Square and it was packed with people, it looked really cool.
The speakers were all women, and mostly people of colour (barring one of the organisers). It started with a First Nations Elder blessing the crowd with Cedar and Sage. She explained what each meant, but I have a terrible memory… I do remember that they are both women’s medicines though, which I thought was a powerful touch.
One of the speakers was the first hijab wearing woman elected to public office in Canada, Asuma Malik. I both can’t believe that a woman wearing a hijab was elected to serve on a school board, and also that she is the FIRST in 2014. (TW: Islamophobia) She went through some things.
I didn’t see many police officers, though there were ones outside of the US embassy, which had been blocked off. Probably for the best, because people are people and there were 60k people there, I guess. There were also some horse cops (not mounties, those are people in the RCMP and there isn’t really much of an RCMP presence in Ontario, excepting Ottawa. ~the more you know~)
They pointed out that Kevin O’Leary was a Canadian Trump, which seems pretty true. (I do not want him as leader of the Conservatives, he seems to be pretty close ideologically to Trump with regards to having no regard for social issues. Here’s an opinion column from Arlene Dickinson about if the person we saw on Dragon’s Den is the same as he actually is. Spoiler: Yes. He is the same.)
They also spoke a lot about First Nation problems, especially all the missing and murdered First Nation women. They called on the Trudeau government to stand true to the promises they made during the election, and deal with the problem.
(Trudeau was recently asked while taking a selfie if he intended to implement UNDRIP, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and his face is hilarious when he attempts to get out of there. Hopefully the fact that this clip went viral will help push the government into doing something here?)
There were some sound issues at the end in Nathan Phillips Square, but there were luckily two mics to cycle through and then a bullhorn for when neither worked. I enjoyed the quip “Women have to work really hard to get their voices heard!”
In a smaller act of protest, I needed a new slowcooker. I try to shop Canadian when I can, and frequently that means the Bay. However, they carry Ivanka Trump’s design line and I don’t really want to support that. I have already emailed them about it, but when I checked today her stuff is still being sold.
So I decided to get my slowcooker at Canadian Tire, which has no results for ‘trump’ when I search their site.
That was seventy dollars that could have gone to the Bay that now went to Canadian Tire.
(oops that got long sorry)
I’m really enjoying seeing where people attended marches, or even where they were attending in spirit if they couldn’t attend in person.
@opposablethumbs
@rugbyyogi
So pleased to hear we were all together, albeit with another thousand people (or ten) in between.
I meant to share one of my favourite pics of the day (only I can’t figure out how to); the little green man on a crossing had been replaced by the male/female/non-binary symbol. Which is quite a thing!
I’m told the London mayor Sadiq Khan authorised it at last year’s Pride, on the crossings close to Trafalgar Square, and it hasn’t been switched back yet.
In preparing for today, I saw a lot of trolling re Khan (who is Muslim) along the lines of “why March against Trump when your mayor supports sharia and the burka etc”. Leaving aside for a mo that he isn’t my mayor as I don’t live in London, he is a human rights lawyer and is a self-proclaimed feminist. Oh, and I’ve seen photos of him on today’s March.
Three cheers for Sadiq Khan.
Just got back from the Seattle women’s march. It was very peaceful. Before the march started the bicycle police were running laps around the gathering area and every time they passed people clapped and cheered. People also thanked the officers as they walked past the on the route. My favorite signs were “Females are strong as hell” and “Knope we can” with Leslie Knope doing the Rosie the Riveter pose. An estimated 125,000 people were there. Considering we got to the end, rested a while, walked back to our car and there were still over a mile of people (on the 3.5 mile route) marching as we walked back, I believe it.
I only saw one; a woman standing on a corner near the end point of the march shouting, “Build the wall! Make America great again!” over and over again. There was also a guy on the route with a megaphone asking everyone if they’re right with god. A couple of guys had set up next to him with signs reading, “Weed is Jesus” and “Jesus is weed” but that’s really not too out of the ordinary for Seattle (both the preaching on the sidewalk and the stoners), so I don’t know if it counts as a counter-protest.
I protested in Moscow, Washington, with several friends. It’s a small town in close proximity two local public universities, both conservative. The turn-out was great, and everyone kept talking about how empowering the experience was. The speeches at the end of the march emphasized intersetionality, alliances, and our political power as advocates. It was only the third political march of my life, but it won’t be the last!
RATS! I missed the march in Bristol, it was a very last minute decision to have it, but still a good crowd turned out.
WELL DONE EVERYONE EVERYWHERE!
And brilliantly, all the marches across the globe were peaceful. Even in Antarctica, bless em! 😉
https://www.womensmarch.com/global/
Natalie-That’s the problem I have, too. I live in Brisbane and since Trump was elected I have been wanting to attend protests, but I never find anything on local protests in the search results. 🙁 I wish they put the right key words in so people can find them.
Abars01-I have just heard about what happened in Melbourne on Friday (I don’t have a TV so I missed it on the news. My mother just told me what happened). I was shocked because I lived in Melbourne until recently and my sister works in that area. I’m glad that you are ok! *hugs*
Reporting from Syracuse, NY. There were about 2000 of us protesting Trump. Mostly white women but some people of color as well as white men. I our bastion of liberalism the mood was peaceful and positive. I found this frustrating since my impotent rage towards Donald Trump made me want to scream obscenities and break things. I was uplifted by the less then peace rhetoric” of some of the speakers. One of which declared that “protest without the inclusion of people of color, handicapped people, trans people, undocumented people, lgbt people was bullshit.” I was uplifted by the amount of people that attended the rally but I ask “Where’s the outrage? “
I have a confession.
I’m operating from a place of shame right now. I loathe the First Yam and his policies as much as any other American here. I think that women, alternate sexual identities, preferences and races should should be treated like human beings. I was intending on going to the march in Santa Ana.
And what do I do? I fucking sleep through it all. To the point it’s nearly four PM when I wake up. Yes, I had trouble sleeping last night. I still set an alarm. And then I wake up, turn it off, and crash out again. Bzzt. And then I finally wake up, see the masses who made it at every city in the world, and feel nothing but shame for my own body betraying me.
Yes, I am only one person. But things like these all start with just one person. One person that’s willing to take the risks, stand up, and say to the powers that be, “I ain’t taking your shit anymore”. In that, I failed. And I feel like I failed my beliefs and those of others.
There is one thing I’m going to do Monday that I can still do. I’m going to call my Senators and give them kudos and tell them to not give them a damn inch of ground in DC, and I’m going to tell my GOP (albeit moderate) Representative to not cave to what they want, and remind them that I am a constituent and I’m going to be paying close attention to how they vote. Their employment depends on what kind of job we think they’re doing.
Trump and his cronies are likely hoping that once the upheaval surrounding the inauguration dies down our attention will go elsewhere, and then they can push through their shit without us noticing until too late. We all have to keep showing otherwise. It begins here, but it sure as hell can’t end here. The pressure has to be kept on, and even I know that.
I can do that much at least.
@dakry,
You’re allowed to sleep, it’s okay. You needed it. After the emotional drain of the last months, you earned it.
Consider it a rebirth of sorts, if you want. You’ve been through the worst of it, and now you’re on the other side, and now you’re ready to get in there! Just don’t be ashamed of needing to sleep, or work, or of needing to avoid crowds, or whatever. You’re allowed to be human.
<3
What Scild said.
I forgot to mention in my post that on the drive over to the march my mother and aunt were talking about Milo Y. They knew who he was and that he gave a talk last night at UW. It’s so surreal how mainstream these horrible excuses for humans have become. What’s next? Is my niece going to start talking to me about Paul Elam?