1 of 6 | Attendees of the 2024 Women's March chant as they march down Constitution Avenue toward the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Participants marched from Freedom Plaza to The Ellipse, where Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris gave her final major address on Tuesday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI |
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Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Washington D.C., on Saturday as part of the Women's March 2024, calling for abortion rights and voicing support for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris three days before the election.
The march was designed to evoke the spirit of the original mass rally when out more than 1 million demonstrators turned out the day after Donald Trump's inauguration 2017 to denounce his presidency.
Saturday's event was much more modest with around 10,000 participants marching from Freedom Park to the White House, Women's March executive director Rachel O'Leary Carmona told The Washington Post.
But participants said they still got their message out, chanting slogans such as "We won't go back" and carrying signs reading, "A woman's place is in the White House."
The initial event on Jan. 21, 2017, was staged as a rebuke to Trump's swearing-in ceremony and resulted in one the biggest mass events in the District of Columbia's history, while simultaneous marches drew large crowds across the county and around the world, including 150,000 in Chicago and 125,000 in Los Angeles.
Participants then similarly demanded that abortion rights be protected while criticizing the Republican victor for his disparagement of women, minorities and immigrants.
This time, organizers said they wanted to march before a presidential election involving Trump in hopes of swaying voters in favor of Harris.
"On November 2nd, thousands of feminists will mobilize across the nation to show our collective power," the group said on its website ahead the scheduled 4 p.m. EDT rally and march from Freedom Plaza to the White House.
"Had enough people been ready for the fight for our families, our freedoms, and our futures in 2016, Donald Trump would have never been elected. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past."
Carmona said the stakes are far higher now than seven years ago.
"We're on the the cusp of a new era in American politics," she told told ABC News on Saturday ahead of the march. "We have so much on the line. No matter where you're voting, we are in a choice between freedom and fascism."
Among the scheduled speakers were women's rights attorney Gloria Allred, nonprofit media entrepreneur Aisha Becker-Burrowes, bestselling author and astrologer Chani; Parkland, Fla., school shooting survivor Aalayah Eastmond; and racial justice organizer Tiffany Flowers.
Thousands of protester march on the National Mall to rally for women's rights and to protest the election of President Donald Trump near the Capitol for the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017. Crowd estimated in the hundreds of thousands rally in D.C. as part of a global protest against Trump. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI |
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