David Stonehill's Political Diary: Women's March, NYC

“It’s history!” This phrase was repeated by numerous participants throughout an emotionally charged day at the New York City component of the lead Washington, D.C., rally and march. Over 400,000 women and men of all backgrounds, and mostly new to this sort of event, were involved in Manhattan.

As a Democratic activist and lawyer, I had volunteered to assist one of the major organizations involved with this event, Eleanor’s Legacy. This group, formed to honor former First Lady and civil rights advocate Eleanor Roosevelt, trains and supports progressive Democratic women candidates within New York State. Our contingent’s marchers came from Long Island, New York City and Westchester County, and were chiefly women.

I arrived at 9:30 a.m. at our meeting place at East 47th Street and Second Avenue, near the United Nations. I helped hand out printed signs to our participants, including Clinton campaign signs reading, “Stronger Together.” We were also selling purple Eleanor’s Legacy hats.

Eleanor’s Legacy was to be one of the first groups marching and we were to listen to speeches at a site on First Avenue. However, we were a victim of our own success in recruiting participants. The organizers of the march estimated that 100,000 people would show, and planned accordingly. The reality was that we were swamped. The crush of people was so great that our group could not walk to First Avenue for the speeches. However, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer did walk past our group, shouting encouragement to us.

Instead of leading the march with our brass band, we gingerly entered a swirling sea of humanity on Second Avenue only in small numbers at a time. We shuffled, not walked, down the street, having plenty of time to admire the many signs protesters had created. A number contained content not suitable for a family newspaper! Most signs framed a positive message supporting women’s rights specifically or civil rights generally. My favorite was a hand-written sign by a schoolgirl which simply read, “I was so angry, I made this sign.” A fellow marcher, Joanne Fanizza from Farmingdale observed, “Why are we fighting for our rights again? Will this ever end?”

I marched with demonstrators, not only from Eleanor’s Legacy, but also groups such as Planned Parenthood and Broadway Strong. Unaffiliated people were there as well and I walked with a large number of Londoners for a while. They had come to New York in order to join us even though there was a large march scheduled in their hometown.

From the apartment buildings around us, people waved flags, signs and banners from open windows and terraces.

I also encountered an awe-inspiring wave of noise. Protesters far up on Second Avenue would start to yell and the yelling would be picked up by those in front of them. This wave proceeded along the entire line, bouncing off skyscrapers until it reached Trump Tower. The wave would start again every few minutes.

I eventually broke away from the stream of protesters and walked through midtown Manhattan, monitoring the event’s progress. East 42nd Street was jammed. Grand Central Terminal was full of protesters and Fifth Avenue was clogged with people. Major streets like Third and Madison Avenue had thousands of people walking on them and this was not even the march’s route!

By late afternoon, I reached the end of the march at East 55th Street and Madison Avenue where the demonstrators peacefully dispersed. Even as I was leaving, new marchers arrived for several hours more to pick up the slack.
For me, the march proved to be a deeply moving experience; my own version of the 1963 Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C.

Editor’s note: Merokean David Stonehill served as a Hillary Clinton campaign volunteer during the presidential primary and general election.