From coast to coast, thousands of women took to the streets on Saturday to participate in the 2018 Women’s March, ABC News reports. This year the march was titled “Power to the Polls,” and women across the nation marched to promise that they would turn out to the polls this midterm election to vote and to continue to fight against President Trump’s policies.
According to ABC News, the main event of the 2018 Women’s March will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday, where the march’s organizers have organized a voter registration initiative. Organizers chose Las Vegas since it “was rocked by the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, recent sexual assault allegations against elected officials and has become a battleground state that will shape the Senate in 2018,” according to the Women’s March website.
“In 2018, we must turn our work into action ahead of the midterms. This new initiative will address voter registration and voter suppression head on. We marched for justice in D.C., we created our plan in Detroit and now we’re bringing the power of the polls to Nevada,” Tamika Mallory, co-president of the Women’s March said in a statement.
In New York City, Ann Dee Allen, a participant of the march, said that “[felt] differently about it this year.”
“Last year, I just felt kind of angry and impassioned. This year, I feel like I’m in it for the long haul,” she added, The New York Times reports.
In Los Angeles, Women’s March participant Amanda Kowalski said, “I’m done with men feeling like they have some sort of power over women, and I’m definitely done with having a president who believes that he has the power to take things from them, to take things that are provided — like Planned Parenthood — from women, when they deserve the same sort of health care as anybody else.”
Claudia Grubbs, who participated in the Women’s March last year as well, told The Times, “Over the last year, every day when I read the news or watch the news, I’m horrified at the things that Trump and his administration are doing, and I feel like going to the march will help re-center me, refocus me and not make me feel like I don’t know what is happening to our country.”
“I feel like it’ll help me gain a sense of balance and a sense of purpose, and help me pursue things that I want to pursue,” Grubbs added.
In Washington D.C., where Congressmembers are staying put to continue working on the temporary spending bill, some lawmakers took to the stage to speak to the crowd. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, one of the Democratic lawmakers present at the march, told the crowd that they had “transformed the world,” The Washington Post reports.
“They marched, and now they have run for office, and some of them have already won their office,” she said. “We want women to know their power in so many respects — by showing up not only on the day of the march, but in airports, in town halls,” Pelosi said.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand told the crowds, “It’s women who are holding our democracy together in these dangerous times. To change the system, we need to change the players and have women at the table,” The Times reports.
The recent government shutdown also became a rallying cry for participants of the Women’s March.
Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr. also addressed the crowd, according to The Post, and told them that “if Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and the president were women, we would not be in the middle of a government shutdown right now.” The crowd erupted in cheers as Breyer urged the crowd, “Please run! Run smart! Run hard!”
Trump also weighed in on the Women’s March on Saturday afternoon, according to The Post.
Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all Women to March. Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018
“Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all Women to March,” he wrote. “Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!”