Sleep deprivation did
little to dampen our enthusiasm upon arriving at RFK Stadium about 9:00
am. There were buses as far as the eye
could see in that enormous parking lot, and a steady stream were still
arriving. People, mostly women, were
pouring off these boxy, monster vehicles and heading west in a steady mass toward
the Capitol and the National Mall, where the rally for the march was to
begin. But not before opportunistic
entrepreneurs arrived with boxes full of “Women’s March” t-shirts for sale,
hailing us from near and far. We
couldn’t pull $20 bills out of our pockets and purses fast enough to capture a
tangible memory of this historic event, and before we ever got to it.
We walked through the
residential neighborhood of Capitol Hill, passing by townhouses that got nicer
and more grand as we got closer to the Capitol itself. Signs supportive of progressive causes dotted
lawns. One couple came out to the
sidewalk with a French press full of coffee, a full creamer and paper cups to
give to the marchers. Now that’s
support! As we continued west, our
numbers grew larger and more diverse, coming from different directions, with
more signs above heads exclaiming our thoughts, feelings, concerns: “Women’s Rights are Human Rights,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Make America Smart
Again” and “Not My President.” Once east
of the Capitol, the vista expanded. The scene became one of a jaw-dropping sea
of humanity converging and moving in one direction, toward the sounds of chants
and muffled speeches at the southeast corner of the Mall, near the National
Museum of the American Indian at Independence and 4th SW. It was after 10:00 am now and the rally was beginning
there, at a large stage, from which a long line-up of speakers and musicians
would gin up the already animated crowd.
(If only I could see and hear Gloria Steinem, that feminist icon I’ve
admired all my life.)
It is difficult to
describe the density of the masses of people that we encountered as we
struggled around the National Museum of the American Indian. When I say it was all but impossible to move
in any direction once getting to this furthest southeast corner of the National
Mall, I am not exaggerating. If I
suffered from clinical claustrophobia, I would have been in a full-blown
anxiety attack, possibly causing a scene.
If I had fainted, I wouldn’t have fallen down. That’s how tightly we were packed
together. Despite the reality of having
minimal control over our own movement or how much body contact we were forced
to have with complete strangers, I cannot describe how safe it all felt. Everyone was kind, polite and in good humor. And it was like this all day. There were not enough porta-potties, and we never could get near the stage where
the speakers were addressing the crowd.
So close and yet so far. That was
easy to give up though. We could watch
all that online after we got home. We
decided to slowly inch our way north and maybe west. That was the direction we all would move in a
couple of hours anyway—around 1:00 pm—when the march toward the White House at
16th and Pennsylvania Avenue began.
We’d get a “head start” on the main event if we headed that way early.
We made it to 4th
Street NW and Madison Drive, and to the East Wing of the National Gallery. We stopped in there, with hundreds of others,
to find restrooms. Women invaded the
Men’s room—there were SO many more of us.
We tried not to look in the direction of the urinals as we headed into
the stalls opposite. A little
uncomfortable but the men were very cool and understanding. Desperate times. We ate in the cafeteria and couple of us had
a beer. It was a good break.
When we emerged onto 4th
Street it was probably 2:00 pm. The march had begun moving and the street was a
solid mass of smiling, chanting progressive citizens expressing their issues in
every way possible as they walked north toward Pennsylvania Avenue: voices, clothing, signs, shirts, hats, hands
and feet. The diversity of our numbers
was wide in every way: gender, race,
age, ethnicity. It looked so representative
of our nation. We joined the slow steady
movement and became part of what felt like one giant organism. Here we all were, those who have felt so
completely dispirited since November 8 when a man so unqualified in experience
and so undeserving in personality and humanity won election as our
President. Our shock, disbelief and
sadness has now been transformed into anger and action. And we were together in the nation’s capital,
publicly bonding ourselves, our energy and our commitment together toward the
goal of resisting the threats his administration will likely pose to our civil
rights and our safety in the world. It
feels wonderful to be here among our like-minded brothers and sisters in this
peaceful demonstration.
Though the distance from
4th Street to 16th Street and Pennsylvania is only 12
blocks, it took almost 3 hours to walk it.
But it was OK. We were
moving. And there was so much to take in
along the way: so many faces, so many
messages to read, so many chants to join.
Some of my favorite chants: “Tell
me what democracy looks like—This is what democracy looks like!” Or men starting with “Your body, your choice”
and women following with “My body, my choice.”
Or “The people united will never be defeated.” Walking by the Newseum, the museum honoring
journalism and its history, with the First Amendment carved in it façade---so
profoundly moving now that we have to worry about the survival of the free
press. A few blocks later we passed the
Trump International Hotel, where a chant of “Shame, shame, shame” broke
out. And where, at the end of the march,
hundreds of the protest signs that had been carried all day were left lying all
along the perimeter of the hotel along the12th Street side. Just another message sent.
By about 5:00 pm, as
daylight was starting to dwindle, I, unbelievably and against all odds in a
crowd this size, found my dear sister, Marie, who had traveled from Florida to
be a part of this—a high point of the day for both of us. Soon after that, my friends and I were at 14th
Street, and decided that we had gone far enough. Since the official endpoint of
the march was at 16th Street in front of the White House, two blocks
away, the crowd was really starting to back up and further movement forward would
require a Herculean effort. We didn’t
have enough gas left in the tank for that.
So we started our journey back the couple of miles east we needed to
cover so we could get back to our bus for its 7:00 pm departure back to
Cleveland. We split up—four walked the
whole way, two of us (me included) decided to brave the Metro. By the time we came up from underground in
Capitol Hill, it was almost dark. To
celebrate our memorable day, we took time to duck into a little bar, had a
quick sandwich and a drink, called an Uber to RFK Stadium and met up with our
friends to wait for the bus. We limped
to our seats, got out our neck pillows and said goodnight. We had done it. We had been part of possibly the largest
protest of a Presidential election in history—over 500,000 in DC, over 2
million worldwide. We can only hope this
is the start of something that will make a difference.
