WASHINGTON — On the one-year anniversary of the Women's March that swelled cities worldwide, activists reconvened Saturday in the nation's capital and around the country with new determination to flex their power in the voting booth and on the ballot.
The gathering also comes on the anniversary of the inauguration of President Trump, whose election in many ways gave the movement its first impetus.
As a sign of the power struggle looming in 2018 between Republicans and Democrats, the march in Washington is playing out against the backdrop of a government shutdown.
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Hundreds of gatherings were planned Saturday and Sunday across the country, including Oklahoma City, Logan, Utah, Asheville, N.C., Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, Los Angeles and Houston, as well as in Beijing, Buenos Aires, Nairobi and Rome, under the banner the #WeekendofWomen on social media.
In Washington, the rally began at the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial In brisk, 50-degree weather under clear skies. Activivsts planned to march to the White House. The monument was to stay open, despite the government shutdown.
They turned up with a forest of creative signs, ranging from the humorous to the vulgar. One said simply: "Grab Him by the Mid-terms." Others expressed support for health care, immigration, reproductive rights.
Even organizers were not expecting the huge crowds that swarmed the capital, and other cities, in 2017 in the wake of Trump's election. The rally was sponsored by the Virginia chapter of the Women’s March.
Organizers said the goal was to solidify the movement and use that clout in 2018 elections. In Virginia's statewide races last year, women turned out in huge numbers at the polls and on the ballots as Democrats made expected gains in state legislative races.
"The unifying theme of the movement is: When we vote, we win," movement organizers in Virginia said on their website. "When we stay engaged, we win. When we support each other, we win!"
Ashley Woodside, 36, a teacher from Dunkirk, Md.,, who came to the march last year, said she’s got mixed opinions on how much progress has been made over the past year.
“The positive is that more people are on board with the cause for women’s liberty,” she said as she brought her young children to the march. “our voices are stronger but you still don’t feel we’re being heard by the people who need to hear us most."
In New York City, where organizers were expecting tens of thousands of demonstrators, the scheduled speakers included Ashley Bennett, a Democrat who was elected Atlantic County, New Jersey, freeholder last November.
Bennett defeated Republican incumbent John Carman, who had mocked the 2017 women’s march in Washington, D.C. with a Facebook post asking whether the women would be home in time to cook dinner.
Brianna Gallina, 22, from Holtsville, N.Y., is attending the NYC march, organized by the Women’s March Alliance, with her younger sister. Gallina said her schedule didn’t allow her to march last year, but this year she vowed not to miss it.
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Before she left for her train into the city, her father, who voted for Trump, asked her why it was so important she march.
“It’s because I want equality. That’s what this is about,” she said. “This isn’t about women or fascism or whatever else you want to blow this into. This is about equality.”
In Zurich, the pink, crocheted "pussy hats" that dominated last year's marches, even put in an appearance among a group of 20, mostly expatriate Americans, who gathered on the fashionable Bahnhofstrasse shopping street with posters and leaflets.
Alexandra Dufresne, a lawyer from New Haven, Conn., now living in Zurich, helped organize a Swiss-American political action group after last year’s march aimed at protecting Swiss and American shared values.
At the protest on Bahnhofstrasse, Dufresne and her compatriots asked Swiss passerby their opinion of Trump. And they apologized.
“Dear World,” read the poster carried by Katherine Harper, an American from northwest Indiana now living in a Zurich suburb, “on behalf of the U.S., I’m sorry. “
But they also offered concrete ways Americans abroad could participate in the political process back home, starting with registering to vote from abroad.
“The Swiss have a deep love of American ideals,” she said. In the past year, as the Trump administration took such actions as pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, Dufresne said, she "often felt ashamed and embarrassed about what the U.S. is doing around the world.”
In Las Vegas, the Power to the Polls rally Sunday will kick off an effort to register 1 million voters and target swing states in the midterm elections.
More: Power to the Polls: When and where is the women's march in 2018?
“We made a lot of noise,” said Elaine Wynn, an organizer last January. “But now how do we translate that noise into something concrete or fulfilling?”
Linda Sarsour, one of the four organizers of last year’s Washington march, said Las Vegas was picked for a major rally because it is a swing state with one of the most competitive Senate races in 2018.
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 Latina and transgender female speakers, said Carmen Perez, another co-chair of the 2017 Washington march. Women in the U.S. illegally, sex workers and those formerly incarcerated are welcome, she said.
Contributing: Doug Stanglin in McLean, Va.; Donna Leinwand in Zurich; Alis Dastagir, in New York
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