Thousands of people hit the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday for the second Women’s March in L.A.
It’s one of hundreds of events that were planned across California and the country.
The event in L.A. started at 8:30 a.m. in Pershing Square. Attendees began marching at 10 a.m., reaching Grand Park and City Hall around 11, where a very long list of politicians and activists are scheduled to speak until 3 p.m.
Catch up on everything you need to know about the Los Angeles festivities, including street closures and transportation, here.
California billionaire Tom Steyer addresses marchers in Chicago, calls on them to â€flip those seats’ in 2018
California billionaire Tom Steyer announced recently that he won’t be running for U.S. Senate or governor this year. But that certainly doesn’t mean he’s stepping out of the political spotlight.
Speaking to protesters at the Women’s March in Chicago, Steyer urged the crowd to get more politically involved.
“This year is different. This year we have to be more purposeful,” said Steyer, wearing a white sweatshirt with the words “NEED TO IMPEACH” emblazoned on the front. “Because in 10 months, there are going to be 435 congressional seats up … and that means we are going to have to be more organized, we are going to have to be engaged, and we are going to have to go to the polls and flip those seats.”
Steyer has poured tens of millions of dollars into a campaign urging Congress to impeach President Trump. He also recently announced he’ll spend $30 million organizing young voters in 10 states, including California, to help Democrats’ efforts to regain control of the House.
Jane Fonda, at Park City, Utah, rally, on the future of U.S. democracy
Our democracy’s survival and and the Earth’s survival depends on our ability to get people the facts, help them understand who is really on their side — and they’re not alone — and then get them registered and motivated to vote.
— Jane Fonda at the Respect Rally in Park City, Utah
â€Grab â€em by the ballot box’: Marchers in Los Angeles look ahead to midterm elections
A year after the inaugural Women’s March, some Angelenos were less interested in reacting to the Trump presidency than plotting to stymie it.
Many held signs and chanted slogans looking ahead to the 2018 midterm elections, which are increasingly expected to bring a Democratic wave. Ten Republican incumbents are being targeted in California congressional contests, and races here are seen as critical battlegrounds in the Democrats’ plans to retake control of the House.
“A protest is great, but if you don’t follow that up by bothering your politicians and going to vote, it doesn’t do much,” said Ali Davis, 46, a Koreatown resident who was holding a sign that read, “Grab em by the ballot box.”
Near Grand Park, Dorsa Ansari wrote on a chalkboard that read “#PowerToThePolls,” a national effort by Women’s March activists to get demonstrators more involved in politics in 2018.
“If people don’t vote, they’re not taking a stand,” Ansari said.
Organizers of the marches nationwide altered their original motto slightly for this year’s march from “Raise your voice” to “Raise your vote,” emphasizing the need to parlay enthusiasm from the many protests into on-the-ground political organizing.
Other marchers used the event to help register voters and encourage them to sign up for absentee ballots.
Viola Davis, at L.A. Women’s March, speaks to â€women who are still in silence’
I am speaking today not just for the MeToos because I am a MeToo. But when I raise my hand I am aware of all the women who are still in silence, the women who are faceless, the women who don’t have the money and who don’t have the constitution and who don’t have the confidence and who don’t have the images in our media that gives them a sense of self-worth to break their silence.
— Actress Viola Davis, addressing Women’s March in Los Angeles
Tempers flare with pro-Trump protesters, but peace reigns at L.A.’s Women’s March
The march in Los Angeles remained largely peaceful Saturday, with no arrests reported as of 2 p.m.
“It’s been pretty calm,” said Officer Karen Mondragon of the LAPD’s Central Station.
There was a short confrontation between supporters of President Trump and some marchers near the end of the march route.
Outside Los Angeles Police Department headquarters at 1st and Spring streets, a group of eight Trump supporters stood waving flags and speaking through bullhorns.
Women’s march volunteers stood in a line holding hands in front of the pro-Trump crowd, separating them from the bulk of the marchers. Dozens of police officers kept watch.
The two groups hurled insults at each other, with the Trump backers yelling, “Go back to Mexico!” and the marchers yelling, “Go home, racists!”
At one point, the crowd began to chant, “We can’t hear you!” at the small group of Trump supporters.
People rallied in sub-freezing temperatures for the Women’s March in Park City
Hundreds came to City Park in Park City, Utah, for the Respect Rally on the one-year anniversary of the national Women’s March.
Nonstop snow, below-freezing temperatures and Sundance Film Festival crowds didn’t stop hundreds from venturing to Park City, Utah, for a Women’s March anniversary rally.
For some, the Respect Rally conveyed a message of female empowerment and progress.
Lisa Williams brought along her inspiration for attending — her 3-year-old daughter, Annie.
“Just being here to stand up for women, and make sure that women are treated equally as men,” she explained, teary-eyed.
Emily Gaudet brought two generations with her — her mom, Cindy Masumoto, and her children — 1-year-old son Bennett and 5-year-old daughter Eloise.
After a yearlong media blackout — a self-prescription to stay away from the news while pregnant — Gaudet attended the rally for a simple reason: to witness hope.
“I know very little. But I know that it’s not good, and I want to see something good.”
For others, the rally was a message of resistance to the Trump administration.
“I’m just getting tired of all the stuff happening on Capitol Hill. I think people need to stand up and ask for a change,” Satish Rishi said.
He and his wife, Maureen, are a biracial couple who live in California by way of Texas. They said their children have faced discrimination in the wake of Trump’s presidency.
“I tell them to embrace their differences. They do a good job with that, but they still feel threatened walking down the street sometimes because of their mixed color,” Maureen Rishi said.
Gloria Allred, Jane Fonda and Common were among a handful of speakers who addressed the crowd.
As the rally continued, the snow didn’t stop. The cheers didn’t either.
Watch thousands of Angelenos stream into Grand Park for the Women’s March in this time-lapse video
Video credit: Calvin B. Alagot / Los Angeles Times
Palestinian American group shuns L.A. Women’s March over Scarlett Johansson’s ties to Israeli company
Actress Scarlett Johansson, who is expected to be one of the featured speakers at Saturday’s Women’s March L.A., is the subject of a separate demonstration.
The Palestinian American Women’s Assn. (PAWA) announced on its Facebook page that it was withdrawing from the march in downtown L.A. because of Johannson’s participation.
The group is critical of Johannson’s role as a former spokeswoman for SodaStream International, a company that produces seltzer-making machines in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In Portland, hundreds of protesters splinter into a variety of causes
Hundreds of protesters and a smattering of counterprotesters gathered at Terry Schrunk Plaza in downtown Portland on the first anniversary of the Women’s March — with a backdrop of dozens of police in riot gear.
While last year’s Women’s March attracted as many as 100,000 in pouring rain, this year’s events splintered into at least four protests and rallies.
The Trump Impeachment March and #MeToo March & SpeakOUT rally were all unfolding on Saturday, while a separate Indigenous Women’s March was planned for Sunday.
Barb Beliveau, who was at last year’s Women’s March, bemoaned the splintering of the political left in Portland since last year’s mammoth rally. The holding of multiple smaller events rather than a single big one, Beliveau said, “is just too … bad.”
Sherry Potwara and her fiance John Mitchell came out, Potwara said, because President Trump is “failing at governing. Where are we headed as a country?”
Police showed up in smaller numbers than during the 2017 march, and the day’s events unfolded peacefully.
â€Black women didn’t do this,’ says one protester, but she’s here to march anyway
Alex Phillips, 25, had a bold statement stenciled on her black-and-white sign as she marched down Olive Street: “Black women didn’t do this! (yet here we are).”
It was in reference to the fact that black women voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections. They’re also credited with helping defeat of Roy Moore in Alabama’s U.S. Senate election late last year.
Phillips, who lives in Los Angeles, marched last year too. She called the past year “maddening” but added that it makes her hopeful to see so many women, especially white women and straight women, standing up for their rights.
“Just showing up is benefiting everyone,” she said.
Signposts from the Women’s March — angry, ironic and sometimes really funny
Tweets are fine, but you can’t hold up a tweet for your fellow marchers to see. Same goes for videos, blog posts and selfies.
That explains why thousands of people marching Saturday grabbed cardboard, colored paper and markers to make their feelings known.
Here are signs across the country. Let’s start with the kids:
Photos: Pink hats, anti-Trump posters and more from the Women’s March
Trump says it’s a â€perfect day for all women to march’
An early-afternoon tweet from President Trump hailing the nationwide Women’s March gatherings drew groans and guffaws from marchers in Washington who saw it pop up on their phones.
On Twitter, the president called it a “perfect day for all Women to March,” seeming to imply that those taking part were celebrating his administration’s accomplishments.
“Well, we’ll celebrate when…” said an elegant gray-haired woman, before expressing an unprintable wish for Trump’s departure from the scene.
Washington’s ever-enterprising vendors were out in force on the main approach routes to the gathering in the nation’s capital, selling march-themed T-shirts, buttons and pink caps.
One marcher carried a 3-foot-tall Trump papier-mache figure — “I didn’t make it, I bought it!’ she said.
A T-shirt seller tailored his sales pitch with a nod to the diversity of the crowd. “All sizes and colors!” he shouted. “Just like you!”
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Democrat Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election, addressed the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial.
“The Trump shutdown is due to the inability of the Republican Party to do basic governing, like making a budget,” he said.
Plenty of kids marching alongside their moms in Los Angeles
Malika Dawson, 23, woke up before dawn Saturday, strapped her 1-year-old baby to her front side and boarded a train in Pasadena. By 7 a.m., Dawson and her daughter, Khlo, had arrived in downtown Los Angeles for the march.
“I want to bring my daughter to as many events like this throughout her lifetime,” Dawson said as her daughter stared at a group of people chanting nearby. “Hopefully, it’s not necessary in the future to still protest for women’s rights, but I want her to know she can stand up and take action.
“To see all these people who want equality just like me, it gives me hope for my daughter in the future,” she added.
Dawson was one of many mothers who brought their children to participate in Saturday’s events.
Throughout the day, toddlers and teens alike held signs, walked with their parents and chanted along with the crowd.
As Summer Holl, 43, wound her way through the streets, she encouraged her 10-year-old daughter, Esme, to chant along with the crowd.
“We feel so angry and upset, and so isolated in that anger with the country being so divided,” said Holl, who woke up at 6 a.m. to travel an hour from Agoura. “To come out to the march and see all the people … we know we’re not alone.”
Aerial video shows crowd gathering in Pershing Square for Women’s March
Video credit: KTLA
Someone you won’t be seeing at today’s Women’s March: Sen. Kamala Harris, thanks to the shutdown
The shutdown of the federal government is keeping some California politicos in Washington, D.C., for the weekend instead of marching on the streets of Los Angeles.
Among them is Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, who canceled her appearance to remain in Washington as negotiations continue on a funding measure. Harris is among the Democrats who has demanded that any deal include a provision to protect so-called Dreamers from deportation.
Harris was scheduled to address marchers in front of City Hall around 11:15 a.m. Saturday. She also canceled a planned speech at an annual breakfast held by labor unions honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.
Principal shows support for â€Dreamer’ students in L.A. as government shutdown continues
As a government shutdown continued in the nation’s capital, in part because of disagreement over how to handle the fates of young people brought to the country illegally as children, Gary Garcia, 55, held a sign in downtown Los Angeles supporting them.
“Dreamers must stay in the country they know,” the sign read, “the United States of America!”
The Marshall High School principal said he came to support his wife and women’s issues but said many of his students are DACA recipients and “they’re really stressed out.”
The fate of the so-called “Dreamers” is still up in the air after a federal judge blocked President Trump’s move to end the program, which allowed participants to stay in the country and obtain work permits and was set to expire March 5. The Trump administration has said it will ask the Supreme Court for a ruling on the matter.
Garcia and his wife, who both marched last year, left their Mid-City home at about 7 a.m. Saturday to get to the march. Garcia said he wants to continue to send a message to the president that his policies are unacceptable.
“If we don’t protest, it implies acceptance,” he said, standing near the corner of Fifth and Hill streets. “There’s so much that’s wrong right now.”
What if women ruled the world? Common raps at Respect Rally in Park City, Utah
Hip-hop artist Common has been mulling a question: What if women ruled the world? He asked a crowd of hundreds at the Respect Rally in Park City, Utah, before sharing some verses:
Sojourner’s truth is marching on.
Women preachers and world leaders ain’t out the norm.
Healthcare paying for nails, gels and fill-ins.
Intellectual building, intersexual healing.
No stickin’ movers and no quick shooters
After 15 minutes calling you an Uber.
The new world order is fathers loving their daughters
And babies’ mamas supported
And ladies is getting courted in court.
For one mother, a silver lining in Trump’s presidency: getting her 11-year-old daughter involved in democracy
Scarlett Cunningham-Young, 11, stood next to eight of her friends and their families, holding a sign with a quote by activist Malala Yousafzai. It was her second year attending the Women’s March, and she said she felt inspired being around the thousands of other marchers.
“I hope that this country wakes up and realizes that women and girls have voices too,” she said.
Her mother, Shea Cunningham, 46, said she marched in Washington, D.C., last year because she was so outraged over Donald Trump’s election.
Cunningham worries about the state of healthcare and the environment. She said she finds the tension with North Korea and widespread xenophobia especially disturbing.
“We’re stuck in a nightmare,” she said. “It feels like an absurdist reality. It’s almost like a dark comedy, but it’s not funny.”
But she said the silver lining is that her daughter has been able to really participate in democracy and has developed a strong moral compass.
â€I’m rooting for Texas to become a swing state’: 4,500 join Women’s March in Dallas
More than 4,500 people marched through downtown Dallas, some nervous, remembering an attack by a sniper during a Black Lives Matter protest two years ago that killed five police and injured about a dozen others.
Police officers guarded the route, which was mostly peaceful, with a few marchers exchanging words with anti-abortion protesters who had gathered for another march nearby.
Many who came for the Women’s March said they felt the need to show up to demonstrate that Texas, a historically red state, is rapidly diversifying, especially in its largest cities.
“I’m rooting for Texas to become a swing state,” said Andres Ramirez, 35, of Fort Worth, who works in a call center and is campaigning for the Democrat who is attempting to unseat local U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions.
Attorney Marita Covarrubias, 54, brought her 17-year-old daughter and friend. “Living here in Texas, you don’t see a lot of social activism,” said Covarrubias, who grew up in Santa Monica and graduated from UC Berkeley. “Unfortunately, things have not improved over the past year. Women really need to get together to take action on these issues.”
Crowds are backed up for dozens of blocks in New York
In New York, crowds were backed up for dozens of blocks leading to the rally site on the edge of Central Park. Marchers wearing the “pussy hats” of 2017 in all colors and sashes with the words #MeToo and #TimesUp were at a standstill on side streets where pink “No Parking” police signs on barricades blocked off sidewalks.
Doormen in tony Upper West Side apartment buildings looked on and engaged in friendly banter with marchers. A group of young women sang “We Shall Not Be Moved,” while others signed up new voters.
As they did last year, New Yorkers proudly displayed original signs. Deborah Seidman, 58, created a design in the shape of a woman’s body with the words “MeToo” and a raised fist in the center. Another marcher had a sign that read “I’m with her,” with arrows pointing in every direction.
Others called attention to the president’s tweeting habits, with signs that read “We need a leader, not a tweeter.” One carried images of horses that played on Trump’s recent tweet that he is a “stable genius.”
At a rally, activists and performers called for reproductive choice and immigrants’ rights. State Atty. Gen. Eric Schneiderman affirmed his commitment to women’s equality and reproductive choice. “We will never back down from a woman’s right to control her own body,” he said.
At Grand Park, Sikh volunteers hand out free food to marchers
As people continued to gather downtown, Sarbjit Singh of Sikhs of L.A set up a stand in Grand Park to feed marchers as they arrived.
“We’re here for human rights and we’re here for women’s rights,” said Singh as handed out bowls of rice and curry to bystanders. Volunteers also passed out tea and water.
“Free food for all! Free food for all! Human rights, women’s rights,” he yelled out to the crowd while others thanked him.
It’s 23 degrees and snowing in Park City, Utah, but that hasn’t stopped the Women’s March
It’s 23 degrees and snowing in Park City, Utah, but that hasn’t stopped the Women’s March.
Hundreds of women turned out to Respect Rally Park City for a lineup that includes Jane Fonda, Common, Gloria Allred, Lena Waithe and more.
PHOTOS: Respect Rally in Park City »
“When we talk about empowering women, we’re not talking about moving to a matriarchy,” Fonda said Friday night. “We’re talking about moving to a democracy.”
The Sundance Film Festival continues in Park City this week as filmmakers continue to talk about working in the industry during the #MeToo era .
“I brought my brothers here, they’re going to go to the women’s march,” actor Jared Abrahamson said Friday. “It’s not a time for men to tell people things, we should be listening and learning.”
In Atlanta, they’re preparing to direct â€Power to the Polls’
In Atlanta, thousands of activists gathered Saturday morning at a squat, brightly painted warehouse in a poor but gentrifying neighborhood southwest of downtown as organizers set up booths on voting, women’s healthcare and civil rights.
Outside, a large sign declared “HUMANITY CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT EMPATHY.”
Rather than march again, organizers of Power to the Polls planned the event to inspire more progressive candidates to run for office, register voters and educate activists on how they can effectively mobilize people to vote.
The point is to go beyond another feel-good moment, said Janel Green, one of the organizers of the Atlanta Women’s March last year and a co-founder of the Georgia Alliance for Social Justice, an advocacy group that grew out of the march.
“We’ve already mobilized,” she said. “It’s time now to translate that momentum into impacting elections. We’ve got to develop strategies to mobilize and inform voters.”
First in line outside the parking lot was Vicki Krugman, a retired school district administrator from Athens, Ga., who got up at 7 a.m. to make her sign — a pink placard decked out with flashing lights that said “Women who behave rarely make history.”
“I’m here to encourage and support women in leadership and get more women in the political arena,” she said. “Every day I open up the newspaper and it’s another tragedy for our country. This administration is slowly killing our democracy.”
One of her friends, Toni Reid, said the women were buoyed by the recent victory of Deborah Gonzalez, who beat Republican candidate Houston Gaines in the November election for Georgia’s District 117 state house. The women now had their sights on electing another woman, Chalis Montgomery, to Georgia’s 10th Congressional District.
“It’s women’s time,” Reid said. “We need to take back the country.”
Angelenos explain why they’re marching today
Tens of thousands expected for Women’s March today in downtown Los Angeles
Tens of thousands of people are expected to converge on downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to participate in the second Women’s March in L.A.
As of 8 a.m., crowds were already gathering in Pershing Square where a rally is scheduled later this morning before the march to Grand Park in front of City Hall at 10 a.m. The event will feature a number of speakers and will continue until 3 p.m.
This year’s Los Angeles march, not surprisingly, is celebrity-heavy: The lineup of those scheduled to take the stage includes Scarlett Johansson, Megan Mullally, Olivia Munn, Olivia Wilde and Alfre Woodard, the organizers said.
Thousands of women flock to the streets nationwide for a â€Weekend of Women’
Dusting off pink-knit hats and brandishing colorful signs, marchers gathered Saturday in the shadow of the capital’s Lincoln Memorial, in midtown Manhattan and in scores of other venues across the country — not aiming to recreate the record-shattering crowds of the Women’s March a year ago this weekend, but vowing to make a mark at the ballot box.
Seeking to send a message of female empowerment and solidarity in the face of a divisive presidency that began a year ago Saturday, activists staged protest marches and voter-registration drives, with the #MeToo movement of recent months serving as a dramatic inflection point.
A far smaller crowd than last year was expected Saturday in Washington, where hundreds of thousands converged last year, chartering buses and carpooling with strangers, overflowing streets near the planned march route.
Here’s what the crowds look like as the Women’s March in L.A. gets underway
The Women’s March in L.A. has officially begun, and hundreds of people have already gathered in downtown Los Angeles.
Aerial television footage showed the streets immediately around Pershing Square filled with people.
Here’s what the crowd looks like on the ground as things get underway:
In New York, women gather by the thousands
Marches planned in all 50 states
The crowds are not expected to be as large as last January, when more than 1 million people marched across the globe to protest the presidency of Donald Trump, who was inaugurated a day earlier. Still, if all goes according to plans hatched by a variety of activist groups, protests will unfold this weekend in all 50 states and several foreign countries.
“I think they will be smaller, but I think they will be more focused,” said Linda Sarsour, one of the organizers of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington. That march was among the largest in American history, and protesters flooded the National Mall and streets throughout the capital.
In all, hundreds of events are planned for Saturday and Sunday, dubbed the #WeekendofWomen on social media.
Everything you need to know about the L.A. march
Thousands of people plan to hit the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday for the second Women’s March in L.A. Here’s everything you need to know about it:
What’s the plan?
The Los Angeles event starts at 8:30 a.m. Saturday in Pershing Square. Attendees will begin to march at 10 a.m. to reach Grand Park and City Hall by 11 a.m., where a very long list of politicians and activists are scheduled to talk until 3 p.m. There will also be plenty of Hollywood “special guests,” including actresses Laverne Cox, Scarlett Johansson and Olivia Munn.
For Southern Californians who want to march but can’t get to L.A., other marches will be held in the South Bay, Orange County, Riverside County, Kern County, Bakersfield and Santa Barbara.
These are the streets that will be closed for the march
Organizers of the Women’s March in Los Angeles march expect around 200,000 attendees on Saturday, according to their website. The Los Angeles Police Department does not provide crowd estimates, said Officer Norma Eisenman, a spokeswoman.
Road closures will affect Broadway, as well as Spring, Olive and Hill streets from 6th Street to City Hall.
Another march that starts at noon, OneLife L.A., will prompt road closures from La Placita Olvera to North Spring Street.
Police suggest staying away from downtown if you’re not planning on participating in the march, because traffic will already be heavy, Eisenman said.
After a year of Trump and outrage, this weekend’s women’s march will focus on electoral politics
A year after a sea of knitted pink “pussyhats” greeted Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th U.S. president, women and their allies will again take to the streets this weekend in dozens of cities across the country, voicing anger, channeling hopes and weighing how the country has fared in the year after one of the most divisive presidential elections in recent memory.
Organizers and many participants say the tone has shifted from Jan. 21, when the millions of women who turned out to march — in Washington, nearly every major American city and as far away as Australia and Europe — shocked even those who had organized the protests.
Sheer size yielded a cultural moment, one that became part of a wider social reckoning that would coalesce months later into the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements demanding accountability for sexual misconduct.