Women’s March anniversary highlights achievements, divisions
Somewhere in the vast crowd, huddled with hundreds of thousands on a cold, rainy day, Elva Alvarez felt a moment of awakening, a spirit of sisterhood and surge of optimism.
On the bus ride from Houston to the 2017 Women’s March in Washington D.C., Alvarez had seen fellow riders cry as they watched “Selma,” heard stories from marchers who had brought children and grandchildren, who traveled to honor lost loved ones. She had gasped in awe at the size of the march, one of the largest ever in the nation’s capital.
It was, she says, “a cry from deep within, and it was female.”
But Alvarez, a veteran activist who marched against the Vietnam War as a teenager, knew the march – no matter how big, no matter how energizing – was only the beginning.
“It was great but what will you do tomorrow?” Alvarez, who is 65, thought to herself. “Will the fire still be there?”
This week, the anniversary of the Women’s March is being marked by rallies in 250 cities across the country.
In Las Vegas, a site chosen by the national Women’s March because it is expected to be a battleground in the 2018 elections, a celebrity-studded “Power to the Polls” rally will take place Sunday. The 2018 Houston Women’s March will be held Saturday, and organizers expect hundreds to turn out.
But the anniversary is highlighting divisions that have cropped up over the past year: In Houston, women of color say the local Women’s March organization has excluded them, while nationally there is a split over the mission of organizers.
The year since the historic call to arms, which drew an estimated 3 million protesters to marches in 600 cities across the country and around the world, has been one of change. It has been a year of women speaking up and speaking out.