Women and their Allies March in Los Angeles

Hundreds of thousands of people in Los Angeles marched from Pershing Square to City Hall, on Saturday, Jan. 21 in solidarity with the call for the Women’s March, as part of the local, national and worldwide protests in response to the newly inaugurated 45^th President of the United States Donald J. Trump.

While most of the protesters were women, many men marched.  Many men and women wore knitted pink pussyhats.

Some protesters showed their former support for Hillary Clinton.  While clearly a protest, the mood was festive, including drummers.

Emmilene Pankhurst at Los Angeles Women’s March, Saturday, Jan. 21, on Olive St., outside of Pershing Square.

One protester, who was dressed as a suffragette, was Emmilene Pankhurst.  She said, “I march for my daughter and my granddaughter … for women, for all the most vulnerable in our society, and I march because this is just the beginning.  We’re going to organize.  We are going to take over the House (of Representatives) and the Senate.”

While most of the protesters marched from Pershing Square down Hill St. toward City Hall, some protesters at West 6^th and Olive Streets marched down 6^th toward Grand Ave.  At Grand, they turned right and marched up the steep incline toward City Hall.

While they marched up Grand, a group of five or six other women, sharing a bullhorn, chanted.  One chant was “Our bodies, our choice.”  A second chant was “Love trumps hate.”

The mission and vision statement of the national Women’s March set the tone of the Los Angeles march. The statement, in part, said, “The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government … that women’s rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.  We support the advocacy and resistance movements that reflect our multiple and intersecting identities…. This march is the first step towards unifying our communities, grounded in new relationships, to create change from the grassroots level up.”

The mission statement of the organizers’ of the national Women’s March can be found at https://www.womensmarch.com/mission.