Women and supporters of women protect basic rights and civil liberties

Dominic J Glimco

By Emily Wissemes, Editor in Chief

The Women’s March on Washington inspired hundreds of marches across the country and the world to include one major protest in Chicago.

According to CNN, the Jan. 21 march may have been one of the largest single day demonstrations in history. An estimated quarter-million demonstrators poured into Chicago, so many that it ended up only being a rally because there wasn’t room to march. Yet, people marched anyway.

According to Medill Reports Chicago, in the hours after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Liz Radford decided to make a Facebook page called the Women’s March on Chicago. She created it the morning after the inauguration, and by that night it had a few thousand people interested.

Sophomore Grace Schumann was one of them.

“I had to wake up at 5:30 to get to my friend’s house. And then we left at 6 a.m. We wanted to get up front near the speakers. Plus we were afraid there wouldn’t be enough room,” Schumann said.

Some speakers included Ari Afsar, Karen Olivo, and Samantha Marie Ware from the cast of “Hamilton”, Marilyn Katz who is the co-founder of Chicago Women Take Action, Eloise Diaz Bahrmasel from the RISE Movement, Ann Christophersen and Lynn Mooney from Women and Children First, Channyn Lynne Parker a transgender activist from TransLife Project Manager, Katie Thiede who is the vice president of development of Planned Parenthood of Illinois, and Liz Radford and Ann Scholhamer who are the co-chairs of the Women’s March on Chicago.

“I’ve always been someone who stood up for rights and I felt like this Trump presidency… it’s scary. I feel like we could lose a lot,” Schumann said.

The march drew support from every corner of the globe including the ACLU to Black Lives Matter. It mobilized groups working on issues like climate change, immigrants’ rights, LGBT rights, religious and interfaith initiatives, upper-middle-class white women, and survivors of sexual violence.

“The day, as a whole was full of hope, to be honest. In the morning everyone was still waking up but there was excitement in the air and towards the end of the day people around the city started joining in and cheering us on. It was awesome,” Schumann said.

She also said she hopes that the protest isn’t just a protest, but more of a movement that gets things done.

“We won’t back down. We’re still going to stick around no matter what happens. You can push us down all you want but if you deny rights you get revolution,” Schumann said.