These Boots Were Made for Marching!
No Wall-No Way!
With a little over a month behind me and the historic Women’s March, I am anxious to share my experience with those that supported my trip financially, emotionally and spiritually.
Thanks go to Marjorie Meret Carmen, Leslie Buck, Steve Whitmore, Leslie and Bob Mulford, Alicia Stirling-Julian, Jorge L. Villarreal, Margaret Deranleau and a plethora of emotional support lead by my patient and loving husband, Alan Richmond.
Patient and loving husband watched me on November 9, 2016 cry through the day while cleaning bathrooms with old toothbrushes and Q-tips. I am an inveterate detail oriented cleaner and given the huge and disgusting results of the election the day before, I was scrubbing harder than ever. Those nooks and crannies were cleaned within an inch of their life.
Ready to March!
Then I heard rumblings of a March…a Women’s March. It was late afternoon and I announced, beyond the fact it was 74 days away and we didn’t have the funds to travel across the county, I was going to be there. “Even if I have to travel in the back of the bus.”
On the Hawaiian Island of Maui, Teresa Shook was hatching a plan. She is the founder of the Women’s March that spawned over 640 Marches all over the world.
I will not stand down!
Lots of Pussy Cat hats too!
Alicia created the FB page and Marjorie and I thought about funding possibilities. In the end, almost $1,000 was raised to guide me to the Holy Grail of Resistance, Part One.
In the good ol’ days of resistance, the walks with Chavez in the late 60’s or the tear gas lobbed by the Austin, Texas police for protestors of the Viet Nam War, I was with other students, I attended that school and lived with the team.
I was on my own this time.
Attempting to get to the Metro!
They came by foot, bus, automobile, train and airplane. They came by the hundreds, then thousands and tens of thousands and finally hundreds of thousands. Metro cars were backed up between stations attempting to allow men, babies in carriages and front packs, LGBTQ singles and couples, foreign born Americans and women, thousands of women, to exit packed cars at stations whose names embody America’s rich past and present; L’Enfant Plaza, Gallery-Chinatown, Judiciary Square, Federal Center and Capital South.
This was January 21, 2017. The day after the Presidential Inauguration of Donald John Trump. Clinton had won the popular vote with 48.2% ballots cast vs. 46.1% for Trump. The Electoral College gave Trump the Presidency. Americans were in disbelief and mourning, yet the Resistance had begun.
The sheer numbers of people protesting from cities across the world were staggering:
Washington D.C.-500,000
Los Angeles, CA-750,000
New York, NY-250,000
Chicago, IL-200,000
London, UK-100,000
The solidarity of the human spirit marched worldwide to protest the new administrations policy’s on human rights, women’s rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, the natural environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers’ rights.
Throughout the long day with many times I was unable to move due to the impacted crowds, there were no arrests or violence in the DC March. Civility and calm pervaded. People were kind and generous. The protest signs were funny, raw and poignant. The very air was the antithesis of the last 18 months of bitter and vitriolic campaigning, the likes most of the Baby Boomer Generation and those we have given birth to, had ever witnessed.
We were making history and we knew it.
These boots were made for walking!