The view is overlooking Freedom Plaza, looking down Pennsylvania Ave. toward the Capitol. Credit: Jo Freeman
The Catholic Church, where male celibates hold the power, is the major people provider for the March for Life. Although evangelical Protestants, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are more likely to oppose abortion than Catholics, it is Catholic schools and dioceses who fill their busses with parishioners and students for a trip to Washington, DC. It’s their signs that dominate the march.
Those going to the Women’s March in DC had to pay their own way. Many local groups organized buses for marchers, but they weren’t subsidized. There was a last minute change of location from a march on the Mall with a rally at Lincoln Memorial to Freedom Plaza. That space was too small; people packed the Plaza and flowed into the streets. Many were wearing pink pussy hats that had been popularized by the 2017 March.
At 11:00 a.m. the march stepped off for a short walk down Pennsylvania Ave., turning on 11th St. at the Trump International Hotel and again on E St. Barely five blocks, the walk took a long time because the street was packed and people moved very slowly. Banners were often hidden in the crowd. As marchers returned to the Plaza for the rally, most people left. Many had come as family groups; it was cold and there was no place to sit other than at nearby restaurants. On their way out, many went to the White House where they posed for photos and left their signs in the barricades the police had erected to keep protestors from getting too close.
The Indigenous Peoples March participants gather at the Interior Department, home to many agencies that serve Indian country but are currently closed as part of the partial government shutdown. Credit: Cronkite News/Arizona PBS
Less than a thousand people actually heard the speakers live, or watched them on jumbotrons. At the other end of Freedom Plaza (only a block away), a group of Native Americans played their drums and chanted. On Pennsylvania Ave. itself, pro-lifers set up their large posters showing dismembered fetuses. Feminists stood in front, using their signs to block the posters. A different opposition group had staked out territory on the sidewalk on the march route. DC Police created a protest pen with yellow crime tape and guarded them to be sure there were no physical confrontations. The message on their signs was a combination of fundamentalist Christianity and anti-feminism.
As was true in 2017, many of the signs carried by marchers had an anti-Trump theme, but the percentage was smaller. Some were professionally printed, but many were homemade with personal sentiments. Anti-Trumpism was not a theme in the few speeches I listened to. While the marchers themselves were significantly white, those on the stage were not. Many races and religions were represented. Speakers trumpeted themes particular to their own groups, such as Black Lives Matter.
Major news coverage before the march focused on whether or not some march leaders were anti-Semitic, largely ignoring the Women’s Agenda created for this march. Instead of asking about policy, reporters wrote about "associations." One response was to create a group of Jewish Women of Color to march as a bloc. Several hundred held a Sabbath service at the nearby New York Ave. Presbyterian Church before marching with identifying signs. The other major bloc of non-white marchers were those attending the AFL-CIO’s annual MLK conference at the hotel a couple of miles away. The AFL bussed them to its headquarters where they held a labor rally and picked up Union signs before walking to Freedom Plaza to join the women’s march. It bussed them back around 2:00 p.m.
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