More than a thousand people are expected to attend the Women’s March in Montpelier on Saturday, while other Vermonters will travel to Washington, D.C., to join hundreds of thousands flooding the capital to rally for women’s rights and protest President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Peace & Justice Center, based in Burlington, has arranged for 55 Vermonters to travel to the nation’s capital for the Women’s March; in Vermont, a march takes place in front of the Statehouse at 10 a.m. in Montpelier.
It has been two years since the streets of Washington first filled with the now iconic pink pussyhats, as people gathered in the capital to protest the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
This weekend, with rallies taking place in all 50 states and the capital, millions are expected to return to the streets to make their feelings known about the Trump administration’s policies on women’s rights, workers’ rights, the environment, immigration, gun control, and myriad other issues.
Rachel Siegel, the executive director of the Peace & Justice Center, said she expects about 2,000 people will show up in Montpelier, and she hopes the marches will re-energize people involved in social justice reform.
As of late Monday, 1,000 people on Facebook had indicated they would be attending the Montpelier march. Last year’s March for Our Future rally in Vermont saw 4,000 attend.
“I think people are mobilized and motivated by the primary election results, but I also think people who have been protesting for two years now are fatigued,” Siegel said. “It will be a good turnout and hopefully it recharges people.”
Kristen Vrancken, Women’s March Vermont organizer, said she was still unsure how many people would be attending and said that cold weather may keep people away — the forecast for Montpelier is a high of 12 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday.
The rally in Montpelier is one of thousands happening across the country on Saturday, and comes after the 2018 midterms, which brings a record of 40 newly elected women to Congress, for a total of 126 women in the Senate and House.
Vrancken said the focus of the Vermont rally will be on racial justice and examining racism in the state, as well giving a voice to people who historically have not been given a platform to be heard.
“The Vermont march is going to be specifically focused on uplifting and hearing the voices of marginalized communities, with women who are usually left out of the conversation,” Vrancken said. “Systemic racism and the issues with hate crimes in Vermont and racially motivated harassment. That is at the forefront at our minds for this Saturday.”
Former Rep. Kiah Morris, D-Bennington; Mariko Silver, president of Bennington College; Melody Walker Brook, an artist and member of the Abenaki Nation; Brenda Churchill, of the LGBTQIA Alliance of Vermont; Tabitha Pohl-Moore, the Vermont director of the NAACP; Amanda Garces, from the Vermont Coalition for Ethnic and Social Equity in Schools; Freweyni Adugnia, of SunCommon and an environmental justice and Black Liberation community organizer; Beverly Little Thunder, an activist and member of the Standing Rock Lakota band; musician Patti Casey, and others are scheduled to speak at the march.
Past women’s marches have been criticized for being dominated by white women, and for not giving enough of a voice to more marginalized voices — including not being inclusive of the LGBTQ community and for not allowing people and women of color of having a strong enough voice in the march.
The Vermont Women’s March chapter made sure to try to remedy this dynamic in this year’s march, and made sure that all the people of color who are speaking at the event are being financially compensated for their work, Siegel said.
“What we want to do is introduce that part of the cost of an event like this is that part of it should be compensating your speakers, especially if they are women of color who are pouring their hearts out,” Vrancken said.
For Vermonters who will be trundling down to D.C., a bus will leave the Burlington area at 10 p.m. Friday, make one stop in Fair Haven, and then continue south. That bus is slated to return to Vermont by 4 a.m. on Sunday.
It’s unclear how many people will march in Washington, D.C., and across the country this year, but organizers are hoping the wave of women that took congressional seats will invigorate marchers.
The inaugural Women’s March, which took place on Jan. 20, 2017, had between 500,000 and 1 million people in the capital alone. In the 2018 march, it’s estimated that up to 2.5 million people marched across the U.S.
