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by Michael Mathes
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Perched atop a high metal fence to escape the crush of a massive crowd, Erica Orr surveyed the sea of pink-clad women that had converged on downtown Washington and shook her head in pride and disbelief.
“It’s an indescribable feeling,” the 20-year-old college student from Michigan said of finding herself on Saturday in the midst of one of the largest demonstrations in recent memory in the US capital, the Women’s March on Washington.
Hundreds of thousands of people, mainly women, flooded into the city’s downtown for a march organized to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump as president a day earlier.
“I came because I wanted to be a voice for change,” said Orr, who is African-American. “If I sit at home and complain, nothing’s ever going to happen.”
It appears nobody had expected the astonishing numbers of demonstrators that were drawn to the city, a crowd that appeared to rival that of Friday’s inauguration but acted with more exuberance and passion.
“I’ve been to many protests here, but this is like nothing I’ve ever experienced,” gushed Rosemarie Kerwin, who wore a blue “Obama ’08” sweatshirt.
The retiree from Burke, Virginia cringed about having turned 74 years old Friday, the day Trump took office.
“He’ll do nothing good for women,” she said on Pennsylvania Avenue as she stepped away from the thick crowds of marchers. “He’s not going to unite this country.”
The crowd amassed just below the US Capitol, filling large areas of the National Mall and broad Independence Avenue, where stars like
Madonna addressed demonstrators, as did lawmakers and civil rights leaders.
– Creative, sassy, respectful –
Marchers booed loudly as they filed past the fenced off Trump International Hotel, his newly opened property on Pennsylvania Avenue just blocks from the White House.
One woman quietly stood outside the hotel’s side door holding a poster that read:
“Stick to your tweets, stay away from my twat.”
It was a common, if vulgar, theme that coursed through much of the rally.
“My body, my rights,” said another. “Impeach Trump, the sexual-predator-in-chief!” said a third.
“Girl Power!” several women yelled as they ran down a packed Seventh Street.
One older woman simply held up a coat hanger, a symbol of illegal abortions and one that became a call to arms for the pro-choice movement.
Other signs captured the various moods on the street: creative, sassy, respectful, obnoxious, proud, or terrified.
As one, their overarching message was a rejection of the new presidency of the billionaire real estate tycoon who stands accused of misogyny, discrimination and sexual harassment.
“True patriots resist Trump,” one woman shouted in the crowd.
“I’m with her,” read one sign, with a dozen arrows pointing in all directions.
As thousands of people poured out of a subway station blocks from the march route, a cheer swelled as a beaming John Kerry, who resigned as secretary of state Friday, strode through crowd, shaking hands and offering high fives.
Tens of thousands of the knitted hats with cat ears were made for the march as a sign of protest, and they quickly became an expression of solidarity, with thousands of women wearing the caps on Saturday.
They allude to Trump’s comment in an audiotape which surfaced during the campaign that he could grab women’s genitals with impunity because he is famous.
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