After successful women's marches, what's next for activists?
CHICAGO -- Organizers of Chicago’s weekend protests expected 20,000 marchers to show up. Actually, 250,000 came, so many that police had to cancel a planned march because the streets were too clogged.
And yet in the cold gray light of this Monday morning, one question lingers about what took place: The demonstration is over, so what now?
“It’s time to get active in your community, on every level,” said Ann Scholhamer, who along with Liz Radford and Jessica Scheller co-chaired the Chicago gathering.
The march had been building since the election and is now a staple on social media.
“I think it’s unfortunate that things have to get really bad sometimes before it gets better, but sometimes when you push somebody to the edge, that’s when they finally stand up and step out of their comfort zone,” Scholhamer said.
“Even if we have to do this every year, or every month, to get people together to re-energize them, then I guess I’m in.”
The 2018 mid-term elections will be a primary focus, they say. Safeguarding reproductive rights, preserving health care and protecting immigrants are just three motivating issues for something that’s still too new to be called a movement.
“A lot of the issues that we are talking about right now are American issues,” Scheller said.
For now, they intend to press Congress on Mr. Trump’s Cabinet and Supreme Court choices.
Asked if the march was a protest against the president, Scheller said she though for many people it was.
“I think in some measure it was a protest on a grander scale about the mindset that put the president into office,” she said.
“We want our presence known. We want him to understand that we’re a very powerful demographic voting block and that we need to influence policy,” Radford said.
They know they have a lot of work to do because as powerful they may hope they are, they know they lacked the organization and the votes to defeat Donald Trump.
