The 2016 presidential election was one of the most contentious in recent memory. Though fraught with issues from the economy, terrorism, gun violence, race and gender, often people threw their support behind one candidate out of distaste for their opponent rather than appreciation for their policies.
So when the election ended on Nov. 8, with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College, it was no surprise that things did not just go back to to normal. They could not have. People were too mad, too upset, too afraid to just let things go back to normal.
It was from this anger, unhappiness and fear that people began to organize. On all seven continents people began to fear for reproductive and civil rights. So people who, according to the Women’s March on Washington’s official website, “believe that Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Women’s Rights,” began to organize what would become the largest protest in U.S. history.
Senior political science major DeArryka Williams spoke of having previously attended a protest in St. Louis the Saturday after the election with Blackburn alumna Lindsey Becker. She carried a sign bearing the slogan #notmypresident. “I just really want to get my voice heard,” Williams said. She feels hashtags are significant because. “Social media is…the pathway to the future.”
When sophomore creative writing major Kaja Carter overheard Williams mention having gone to a protest she said she was jealous. She said, “When you feel like somebody is being bullied or that there is an injustice in a system or a process that it is your duty to…keep going no matter how many times you’re told no until a change is made [and] sometimes best way to see change is a protest and…as a broke college student we don’t have many other ways to say ‘here is a problem. I recognize that this is a problem. [Now] fix it.”
English professor Dr. Karen Dillon, who attended a women’s march in Indianapolis, said “I’m fearful for the next four years.” She typically tries not to bring up politics in class because it “causes [her] anxiety to flare up,” but wanted a sense of solidarity. “I have very firm beliefs not just of women’s rights, but the rights of all minorities,” she said of why she attended her first protest.
While there, she said she was most concerned with “the police presence, or lack thereof.” The women’s march has been criticized as being mostly beneficial to white women, and Dillon saw that in her surroundings saying that she felt the police presence was much lower than that of a Black Lives Matter protest because the participants of the women’s march were mostly white. “The racial aspect of it bothered me,” she said, but overall enjoyed the experience.