Some women still wore the pink cat-eared hats of yesteryear, but otherwise, Saturday’s protest was virtually unrecognizable from the landmark 2017 Women’s March that signaled the start of the anti-Trump resistance.
For one, the rally was organized by the Women’s March but rebranded as the People’s March. For another, the event on the National Mall fell well short of the nearly 500,000 who gathered after Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016.
And then there was the content. Virtually all the speakers hailed from little-known leftist groups advocating for causes such as migrant rights, prison abolition, police defunding, free health care, wealth redistribution and the Green New Deal, while denouncing capitalism, imperialism, settler colonialism and Israel.
Fittingly, the rally ended with a message from Angela Davis, the famously left-wing University of California Santa Cruz professor and former Communist Party USA presidential candidate.
“We will continue to demand abortion rights, trans justice, the rights for resources for the children that we choose to welcome into our families,” said the message from Ms. Davis read by a speaker. “We will continue to speak and act in solidarity with the people of Palestine until there is real peace in that region, until Gaza is rebuilt, until Palestine is free.”
No congressional Democrat appeared on the dais, a far cry from the early Women’s March rallies, which featured high-profile lawmakers including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.
Still, the Women’s March organizers were upbeat, urging supporters to help create a “feminist future” by getting involved in various activist organizations and signing up for the Thursday “mass call.”
“Folks keep asking, what is this march? What are we marching for? Who is this march for?” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, Women’s March executive director. “At the People’s March, we are calling out the people who strip our freedoms, and we are calling in we the people, and we are calling on all of us to fight.”
Thousands of ralliers braved the chilly weather to cheer and wave signs on the snowy mall, although they may not have reached the mark of 50,000 people estimated on the National Park Service permit.
The most prominent speaker was Ben Jealous, the Sierra Club executive director and former National Association for the Advancement of Colored People president, who dinged President-elect Donald Trump for ridiculing the Green New Deal during his first term.
As soon as Mr. Trump left office, Mr. Jealous said President Biden signed it into law, adding that “it’s called the Inflation Reduction Act.”
“While he may want to undo it because it was Biden’s signature accomplishment, well, we know what happened when he tried to undo Obama’s signature accomplishment,” Mr. Jealous said. “Obamacare is still here. We will keep America moving forward.”
The decision to change the name to the People’s March spurred speculation that the Women’s March is seeking to be more transgender-friendly, and indeed, at least two speakers were biological men who identify as women.
Raquel Willis, co-founder of the Gender Justice Movement, said that “I stand in front of you as a proud southern Black trans queer woman.”
“It’s midnight in America, y’all,” said Ms. Willis. “Every boogeyman you can think of from White supremacy to patriarchy to transphobia to ableism and capitalism is coming together to try to make our lives smaller. But we are here united in radical defiance, and we will take up space.”
There was plenty of anti-Israel activism, including chants of “free, free Palestine” led by Sandra Tamari and Iman Abid of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
Rabbi Abby Stein, a self-described “out-and-proud transwoman” and member of the Jewish Voice for Peace rabbinical council,” led the crowd in a chant of “Fight back! Disobey! Rise up!”
“Far too many people spent the last two months obeying in advance, giving up on true freedom and equality in favor of seeming more lenient to the fascists,” said Rabbi Stein, a founding member of Rabbis for Ceasefire. “We will not yield!”
Hundreds of other People’s March protests were scheduled to take place Saturday in cities across the nation and the world.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.