LOS ANGELES—Demonstrators from Los Angeles to New York marched in support of female empowerment and denounced President Donald J. Trump’s views on immigration, abortion, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights and women’s rights last Saturday, the anniversary of his
inauguration.
People marched in Casper, Wyoming, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Houston. In Park City, Utah, where the annual Sundance Film Festival is in full swing, actress Jane Fonda and nationally known lawyer Gloria Allred joined the women‘s march.
In Morristown, New Jersey, that state’s new first lady told a crowd she was a victim of sexual violence while attending college.
Tammy Murphy, the wife of Democrat Phil Murphy, said the attack occurred while she was a sophomore at the University of Virginia.
She said she was walking along a path when a man grabbed her and pulled her into some bushes. She said the man tried to take her clothes off and put a crab apple in her mouth to silence her but she bit his hand and fled half-dressed to a nearby fraternity house, where students called police.
In Los Angeles Eva Longoria, Natalie Portman, Viola Davis, Alfre Woodard, Scarlett Johansson, Constance Wu, Adam Scott and Rob Reiner were among the celebrities who addressed a crowd of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators.
Longoria, who starred in TV’s Desperate Housewives, told marchers their presence matters, “especially when those in power seem to have turned their backs on reason and justice.” Portman, an Academy Award winner, talked about feeling sexualized by the entertainment industry from the time her first film, Leon: The Professional, was released when she was 13 and suggested it’s time for “a revolution of desire.” In the 1994 film, Portman played a young girl taken in by a hit man after her family is killed.
Woodard urged everyone to register and vote, saying, “the 2018 midterms start now.” And Davis spoke with the passion of a preacher as she discussed the nation‘s history of discrimination and her past as a sexual-assault survivor.
The 2017 rally in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of similar marches created solidarity for those opposing Trump’s views, words and actions. Millions of people around the world marched during last year‘s rallies, and many last Saturday talked about the news avalanche of politics and gender issues in the past year.
Critics of the weekend’s marches said the demonstrations were really a protest against Trump. More rallies were planned at other cities last Sunday.
Meanwhile, Trump last Saturday tweeted that it was a “perfect day” for women to march to celebrate the “economic success and wealth creation” that’s happened during his first year in office.
“Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months,” the Republican wrote. “Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!”
Trump’s main opponent in the 2016 presidential election, Democratic former US first lady Hillary Clinton, said the Women’s March last year was “a beacon of hope and defiance.”
“In 2018, it is a testament to the power and resilience of women everywhere,” she tweeted, urging people to show that power at the voting booth this year.
Demonstrators last Saturday denounced Trump’s views with colorful signs and even saltier language.
Oklahoma City protesters chanted “We need a leader, not a creepy tweeter!” One woman donned a
t-shirt with the likeness of social justice icon Woody Guthrie, who wrote “This Land Is Your Land.”
Members of the group Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women of Seattle burned sage and chanted in front of Seattle‘s rainy march.
In Richmond, Virginia, the crowd burst into cheers when a woman ran down the middle of the street carrying a pink flag with the word “Resist.”
Image credits: AP/Craig Ruttle