Women, activists to repeat march

Year after making noise, protesters hope to spark change

Minnie Wood makes signs Wednesday with her daughters Buckley (right) and Zoey for a rally this weekend in Las Vegas, one of more than 100 events marking the anniversary of last year’s women’s marches.
Minnie Wood makes signs Wednesday with her daughters Buckley (right) and Zoey for a rally this weekend in Las Vegas, one of more than 100 events marking the anniversary of last year’s women’s marches.

A year after more than 1 million people rallied at women's marches worldwide with a message of female empowerment and protest against President Donald Trump, activists will return to the streets this weekend in hopes of converting anger and enthusiasm into political force.

The 2017 rally in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of similar marches created solidarity for those denouncing Trump's views on abortion, immigration, rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and more. Since then, a wave of women decided to run for elected office, and the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct became a cultural phenomenon.

"We made a lot of noise," said Elaine Wynn, an organizer. "But now how do we translate that noise into something concrete or fulfilling?"

Along with hundreds of gatherings today and Sunday across the U.S. and in places such as Beijing, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Nairobi, Kenya, a rally Sunday in Las Vegas will kick off an effort to register 1 million voters and target swing states in the midterm elections.

Linda Sarsour, one of the four organizers of last year's Washington march, said Las Vegas was targeted for a major rally because it's a strategic swing state that gave Democrat Hillary Clinton a narrow victory last fall and will have one of the most competitive Senate races in 2018. Democrats believe they have a good chance of winning the seat held by embattled Republican U.S. Sen. Dean Heller and weakening the GOP's hold on the chamber.

Wynn, president of the Nevada State Board of Education, said women make up half of the state's congressional delegation, including Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, who became the first Hispanic woman in the U.S. Senate in 2016. Nevada also has one of the highest percentages of female state lawmakers in the country, and women are mayors of its three largest cities.

Organizers say Nevada is also a microcosm of larger national issues such as immigration, as well as the debate over gun control after the deadliest mass shooting in modern history.

After the October attack, the rally will be held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' stadium 10 miles southeast of where a gunman opened fire on an outdoor concert crowd, killing 58 people.

Authorities have kept details confidential about security at the 40,000-seat stadium.

Minnie Wood, a nurse practitioner who participated in the 2017 gathering in Las Vegas, said she was left with a sense of solidarity and "this feeling of almost a quickening, this resistance brewing."

It also laid the groundwork for the recent movement that brought a reckoning for powerful men accused of sexual misconduct, Sarsour said.

"I think when women see visible women's leadership, bold and fierce, going up against a very racist, sexist, misogynist administration, it gives you a different level of courage that you may not have felt you had," she said.

Many women inspired by last year's marches have sought higher office, such as Mindi Messmer, a 54-year-old environmental scientist from Rye, N.H.

Messmer was a state legislator when she attended the 2017 march in her state capital of Portsmouth. She's now a candidate for the seat held by retiring U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, a fellow Democrat.

"Last year was really empowering and uplifting at a time when we women feel we are being assaulted on a daily basis," she said.

Other women running for Congress include newcomer Chrissy Houlahan, who hopes to unseat a Republican in suburban Philadelphia, and Sara Jacobs, a former aide to Barack Obama, seeking the Southern California seat held by retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa.

"There are women all over the country deciding to be candidates," said veteran feminist Kathy Bonk, who worked in the 1970s for the women's advocacy group NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Democratic officeholders pledging to elect more progressive candidates in swing states will be among the speakers in Las Vegas. Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood also will address the crowd.

Last year's march in Washington sparked debate over inclusion, with some transgender minority women complaining that the event seemed designed for white women born female. Some anti-abortion activists said the event did not welcome them.

The organizers for the Sunday rally are striving for greater inclusion this year, with Hispanic and transgender female speakers, said Carmen Perez, another co-chairman of the 2017 Washington march. Women in the U.S. illegally, sex workers and those formerly incarcerated are welcome, she said.

Information for this article was contributed by Ken Ritter, Teresa Crawford, Sara Burnett, Jocelyn Noveck and Bill Barrow of The Associated Press.

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