EMU was well-represented at the annual Women’s March in Washington D.C., which kicked off on Saturday morning as thousands of people gathered in the freezing weather to make their voices heard. A group of five EMU students made the trip to D.C. to take part in this worldwide event. The students traveling together were juniors Liz Miller and Anisa Leonard, sophomores Isaac Andreas and Allison Shelly, and first-year Seth Andreas.
Leaving on Friday, the group packed themselves, along with sleeping bags, pillows, and warm clothing into the small car they would be taking to EMU’s Washington Community Scholars House (WCSH), which currently houses several EMU students while they work and study in D.C.
They arrived Friday evening in time for a warm welcome and a home cooked dinner. After dinner, they made signs and chatted. They brought along posters and each of them made a sign for the next day.
In the morning, they all bundled up in their warmest clothes to take on the harsh weather and set off for the metro, joined by a number of the students living at the WCSH. Wielding their crisp new signs, they ascended out of the metro and into the sunlight, where people with pink hats and volunteer vests pointed them in the right direction. They knew they were headed in the right direction as vendors trying to sell Women’s March pins, hats, and shirts filled the sidewalks.
The students arrived around 10 a.m., about an hour before the march would officially begin, yet the crowds were already covering the plaza and blanketing nearby streets. Signs bobbed above the heads with a range of messages including those calling for reproductive rights, worker’s rights, racial equality, immigrant’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, environmental justice, gun control, and more. Shelly said that the signs were her favorite part of the march. “Having a platform of a rectangular piece of cardboard to write anything that I really believed in felt quite special,” she said.
Also present were counter-protesters with megaphones and large signs—gruesome images of bloody aborted fetuses. Most of the protesters didn’t take much notice of the shouts commanding the marchers “repent for their sins.” Anisa Leonard, a junior at EMU, said, “I wasn’t really surprised that they were there, they seem to show up to everything,” but she said it did not bother her too much. “I did find irony that I was there with my Mennonite classmates, most who love God a whole lot, and the lady was yelling about how we … don’t know God,” she said.
At 11 a.m., the event officially started. Martin Luther King III introduced his wife, activist Arndrea Waters King, who delivered a speech. To the delight of the shivering yet energized crowd, the march set off soon after the speeches, streaming slowly in the direction of the white house. Different chants were repeated as people walked.
“I loved one of the chants we did, in both English and Spanish: ‘Y la culpa no era mía, ni donde estaba, ni cómo vestía’,” Miller said. “‘And it’s not my fault, not where I was, not how I dressed.’”
The march ended in front of the White House, where people continued to chant and wave their signs for a while in the light rain. Several of the students felt they had gained something special from the march. “I had never been to a political march before, much less a political march in Washington D.C.,” Shelly said. “I expected the experience of seeing so many people gathering in one place to be powerful, and it was.”
The students returned to EMU feeling invigorated and hopeful. “I thought it was powerful the way so many people came together… celebrating our shared humanity and dignity,” Miller said.
