‘History!’: Journey to the March on Washington feels like an end and a beginning

·Chief National Correspondent

January 22, 2017 at 11:48 AM

Lisa Belkin attended the Women’s March on Washington with a group of women from Louisville, Ky. On Friday she wrote about their daylong road trip, a story you can read here. On Saturday she joined them for the march itself.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the second day in a row, the dozen women were up and out before dawn.

On Friday morning they had done so in their hometown of Louisville, Ky., boarding a white rented van for the 12-hour drive to Washington. On Saturday they were outside Washington, boarding the Metro at about 6 a.m. for the hourlong trip to the starting point of the Women’s March on Washington. They carried the signs they had painted during a getting-to-know-you dinner back home before the trip: “Respect existence or expect resistance,” “Why are you so obsessed with my uterus?,” “We stand today so they can stand tomorrow,” “Black lives matter,” “The rise of women = the rise of the nation” and “Kentucky women stand together!”

They were early, but they were not the first. A scattering of others had signs with them on the Metro. As they neared the stage at the corner of Independence Avenue and Third Street, there were already hundreds of people, many clustered around a group who had brought box-loads of “pussy hats” knitted by women who could not be at the march. The name of the knitter was pinned to each one, along with her reason for wanting to march. The Kentucky group grabbed a hat knitted by an Oregon woman whose cause was reproductive rights.

By 8 a.m. they had secured a spot about 100 yards from the stage, in a crowd that had grown to thousands. The marchers were so densely packed that it was almost impossible to move, and basically impossible to leave. For the next six hours they would eat little and drink next to nothing, because heading for the porta-potties meant probably never getting this close to the action again. They wouldn’t sit down until dinnertime.

At 10 a.m. the program began, a nonstop parade of celebrity and history.

The scene in front of the U.S. Capitol during the Women’s March on Washington. (Photo: Joe Goldberg)

When Gloria Steinem took the stage, Bridget Pitcock, who works as a chief of staff at a managed-care company back in Louisville, was moved to tears. Steinem put into words what so many in the group were already thinking, that today was the start of something and they were a part of it.

“We are at one with each other, we are looking at each other, not up, no more asking Daddy,” said Steinem to cheers from the crowd, now hundreds of thousands. “This is a day that will change us forever because we are together. Each of us, individually and collectively, will never be the same again.”

At around 11 a.m., Pitcock’s wife, Meg Hancock, read aloud a text to the entire group from a friend back home. “You would not believe how huge the marches are,” it said. “CNN says the D.C. march may be the largest in history and streets all over the country are filled with protests. Louisville was packed!”

The Louisville group cheered when civil rights activist Angela Davis warned, “The next 1,459 days of the Trump administration will be 1,459 days of resistance: Resistance on the ground, resistance in the classrooms, resistance on the job, resistance in our art and in our music.”

When Amy Schumer took the stage, they cheered again. When it turned out that she was there to introduce Madonna, they cheered louder. When the pop megastar asked, “Are you ready?” they chanted back, “Yes, we’re ready.”

“It took this moment of darkness to wake us the f*** up,” Madonna said, and some in the crowd tittered, knowing that the banks of network cameras were covering the rally live. “To our detractors who insist that this march will not add up to anything,” she continued, “f*** you. F*** you.”

And then, perhaps fittingly, she sang “Express Yourself.”

When Alicia Keys took the stage and vowed, “We will not allow our bodies to be owned and controlled by men in government, or men anywhere, for that matter. We will not allow our compassionate souls to get stepped on,” they pumped to her rhythm with their signs. When she sang “Girl on Fire,” they sang along.

A favorite speaker of the group was Ashley Judd, who is no stranger to the Bluegrass State. The actress performed a spoken-word piece written by 19-year-old Nina Donovan. “I am a nasty woman,” she began. “Not as nasty as a man who looks like he bathes in Cheeto dust, a man whose words are a dis to America, Electoral College-sanctioned hate speech.”

“That’s our girl,” Pitcock shouted. “That’s a real Kentucky woman up there,” added Kelsey Westbrook, co-director of an animal-welfare nonprofit in Louisville.

At 1 p.m. they paused for the moment of silence that was being observed at all the 373 marches throughout the country. The official website had said the program would end 30 minutes later and everyone would march for a mile and a half to the Ellipse park, but by 2 p.m. it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. There were too many high-wattage speakers who had yet to be heard. And there was nowhere to march — throngs of people filled what would have been the route. Estimates from the stage were that the crowd had grown past half a million. By 4 p.m. the group decided to join what was becoming an impromptu walk by thousands to the White House, following the same route that the new president had taken in the inaugural parade the day before.

Along the way they chanted:

“Show me what America looks like!
This is what America looks like!”
“Show me what democracy looks like!
This is what democracy looks like!”

Westbrook was feeling tired but also energetic. “This was one of the most inspirational days of my life,” she said.

“This is the beginning of a new movement,” agreed Pitcock. “A movement that includes everyone.” To her the most inspirational message of the day was: “If there is a matter that needs to be corrected, look to the people that it affects the most to lead. This movement will be led by black, brown, Muslim, queer, lesbian, trans women…”

Zyah Brown, 5, said, “I wanna tell Donald Trump he needs to be nice to girls.” (Photo: Mary F. Calvert for Yahoo News)

It was a slow walk — 90 minutes down 15th Street. In the end, the demonstrators were turned away before they reached the White House because the march permit did not include that destination. So the group walked to the Farragut West Metro station, where there was another sea of people, worn but patient, waiting for their turn to board a train.

Westbrook read the latest crowd estimate from a news story on her cellphone. “1.2 million,” she said triumphantly.

“History!!!!!!” shouted Hancock. This was indeed the largest post-inaugural protest ever.

“Totally worth getting up at 4 a.m.,” said Julie Peyton, a home-health nurse.

“Amazing, amazing, it was priceless,” agreed Jocelyn Duke, an artist with a background in social work and basketball coaching. “The speakers that they had lined up, all those people in one spot, the knowledge that they were dropping, priceless, I’d do it over again 10 times over.”

Already, though, thoughts were turning to tomorrow and the long van ride back home.

“Being from a red state, even though Louisville is a blue city, we feel alone at times,” Westbrook said of the unfamiliar feeling she’d had in D.C., where others who shared her worldview surrounded her. “We don’t want to leave. This has been amazing.”

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