‘Our world changes today’: A journey to the Women’s March on Washington
When the group of a dozen women arrive at the staging spot for the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday morning — just after dawn, if all goes as planned, to grab spots up front — it will have been 24 hours since they left home.
On Friday morning, they headed out of town in their white rental van, a loose-knit group of friends of friends of friends. They range in age from 17 to 70. Some are gay, some straight, one transgender. All shades of skin tone, from dark to light. They are teachers, nurses, students, restaurant workers, animal rights advocates and retirees.
All felt called to join what for most was the first organized protest of their lives. Fueled by junk food, a passionate playlist and a belief that they needed to stand up and be counted, they spent 12 hours in a van from Louisville, Ky., and a night on floors, couches and inflatable mattresses in and around Washington, D.C., to become a dozen individuals in a sea of what is expected to be several hundreds of thousands of others.
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Friday, 8 a.m.
The plan was to drive on Friday in order to ignore the inauguration. “Counterprogramming,” joked Bridget Pitcock, chief of staff at a managed care company in Louisville. This trip was her idea. Reading about early plans for the march soon after Election Day, she called her wife of three years, Meg Hancock, and announced they would need to rent a van and fill it with others who were “outraged and in despair.”
Now they had, and once the van was filled to bursting with people, luggage and hand-drawn signs, Hancock, an assistant professor of sports administration at the University of Louisville, paused before taking the driver’s seat to offer a prayer she’d written a few days before.
“Let’s take a moment of silence for the world we knew,” she said. “If you march to say ‘f*** you’ to Trump, I get that. But if you march to say ‘f*** yeah’ for women, for people of color, for the disenfranchised, I’ll be the first to hand you a megaphone. The fact is, today we know our world changes, but it’s not because Donald Trump says it does. It’s because we say it does. And we say how it does.
“Because today,” Hancock continued, “is a demonstration of our commitment to each other, to our LGBT brothers and sisters. To our our black and brown brothers and sisters. To our Muslim brothers, but especially our sisters. To our Syrian refugees, to our immigrants. To our homeless, our poor, our hungry. We commit to listen, to seek to understand, to stand up, to rise up, to educate, to advocate. Our world changes today not because of Donald Trump. Our world changes today because of us. And it is an honor to be a part of that change with you.”
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9 a.m.
There was a lot of talk in the van about backpacks. And fanny packs. And charging spots. And bathroom locations. For weeks, memos had been filling the official Women’s March website, and among the instructions was a restriction of the size of carryalls, to 8 x 6 x 4 in. Clear plastic backpacks could be slightly bigger though, 17 x 12 x 6 in. There was also advice to buy Metro cards in advance by mail, followed by articles in the Washington Post saying the surge in demand for Metro cards meant many who had ordered weeks in advance would not have them in time for the march — including the dozen women in the van.
Ah, the logistics of a protest.
The conversation turned to the list of speakers, which had only recently been released. “My nana fangirled over Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis,” said Blair Wilson, a 19-year-old college student who was traveling to the march with her grandmother, Linda Wilhelms. A veteran of marches — her first protest, in 1969, was against the Vietnam War — Wilhelms was excited to introduce her only granddaughter to this world. “Having her there, experiencing the emotions and energy of the event, was my motivation to attend,” Wilhelms said. “She is an amazingly strong-willed, opinionated young woman. I have worked hard to help her develop a sense of right and wrong, and she is all I ever hoped she would be. She is my hero!”
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10 a.m.
Each was marching for reasons that were the same, but slightly different.
Courtney Hardesty, a service manager at a Louisville restaurant, was marching “because of the repugnant rhetoric used in the last election” and “because there is so much to be done on the front of social justice.”
Kelsey Westbrook, the co-director of a nonprofit animal welfare agency, was marching “because each and every day since Nov. 9, I’ve woken up with a disturbingly sullen, deep-rooted sadness that Trump will soon take over the highest office in the land. I’m going because I feel as though I’ve got to do something that particular day to stand with other women and allies in solidarity. I’m going because there are so many women who aren’t able or willing to go. I’m going because I won’t let his inauguration halt my motivation for progress and equality in our country and in my community.”
Jocelyn Duke, an artist with a background in social work and as a basketball coach, is marching because “it troubles me that we have placed a man in the White House who has openly disrespected and degraded so many people who are different from himself. I march for myself, my twin, my mother, every young woman that I’ve coached, the young women and girls I don’t know. But most of all, I march for my beautiful nieces who will grow up knowing that they are valuable and powerful because of their amazing minds and loving spirits. I pray that we get to a place where we truly love and respect one another so that our children and future generations have a better and safe world to live in.”
Kaitlin U’sellis, an analyst at a health care company, is marching for women’s health. In June, she miscarried twins. The fetuses had to be removed with medical intervention. “I have always been pro-choice,” she said. “But since then, I’m more aware of the need for women’s access to health care. I am marching to keep government out of my uterus and my bedroom.”
The twins’ due date was Jan. 20. Instead she spent the day in the van.
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11 a.m.
They tried to shut the world out of the white rental van with the tinted windows. No one even thought of tuning to live coverage of the swearing-in. But it was impossible to keep the outside from leaking in. They read jokes aloud that they found on Twitter: “The Bible just backed out of the inauguration.” They shared a a meme, a campaign poster of Obama/Warren 2020 — Michelle, that is.
The change of administration registered to them in a bizarre time delay. They watched the video of the awkward welcome of the Trumps to the White House by the Obamas, complete with that Tiffany box no one knew what to do with. But they didn’t see it until a half-hour after it happened.
“Hillary Clinton wears suffragette white to Trump inauguration,” someone read, out of actual order.
“There’s a tweet about a plane of all women headed to the march,” said someone else.
“Did you hear Southwest Airlines has pink lighting inside all its cabins today?”
They discussed any topic but the one that loomed largest.
The closer it got to noon, the quieter the voices became, and the louder the music. Maddie Dalton, the 17-year-old transgender girl who forced the bathroom question in Louisville’s public schools and won, hooked her iPhone to the sound system and blared “The Hamilton Mixtape.”
“Immigrants, we get the job done,” the group sang in unison.
As Mike Pence was being sworn in as vice-president, Hancock switched the music to Beyoncé’s “Lemonade.”
And at about the moment they knew Donald Trump was holding the Bible, Pitcock turned on the song she has specially selected for the moment, Lily Allen’s “F*** You.” The van vibrated with sound.
“So you say, It’s not OK to be gay/Well, I think you’re just evil/You’re just some racist who can’t tie my laces/F*** you.”
They followed that with Common’s “The Day Women Took Over.”
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12:30 p.m.
Having welcomed this Yahoo News reporter along for their ride, it was time to Skype with the team covering the inauguration in Yahoo’s New York studio. They watched, waiting their turn, as Katie Couric talked to Matt Bai about the protests, the bottles and bricks thrown at police, the militarized response with tear gas and arrests.
The video on the Skype screen was the first they had seen. Are they worried, Couric asked. Do they condone the violence?
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1:30 p.m.
Over lunch at a quaint spot next to a gas station, not far off the highway, the women discussed whether, in fact, they were worried. They turned to Wilhelms, the veteran of marches, who stressed that the cause of this gathering was not violent.
But, she added, it is always helpful to have a scarf to tie around your nose and mouth in the event of tear gas. And soaking that scarf in water is even more effective.
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2 p.m.
Dalton scouted out a nearby Dollar Store for bandannas, and Hancock bought a dozen for the group. They debated whether the blue and red ones made some sort of political statement.
Hancock suggested that each woman choose a “buddy” to keep track of her whereabouts should chaos break out.
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5 p.m.
As Washington neared, the traffic increased. So did the fog. The bags of pretzels, trail mix and Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme pies became less appetizing.
The Trump administration version of the new White House website contained no LGBT rights page, a headline read. The public petition page was gone too. And the section of the site that had been about civil rights was now about standing up for law enforcement.
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6 p.m.
Other cars inched along in nearby lanes, clearly headed for the march. The women spotted a license plate from Nevada with “Love Trumps Hate” written on the back window. Passengers on a charter bus from St. Louis could be seen in the windows reading other headlines on other screens.
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8 p.m.
The group scatters to various couches and sleeping bags. They will reconvene at 7 a.m., on a street corner a short walk from the start of the march, to continue their journey.
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