The Biggest Lesson I Learned from the Women’s March
Four years later, the gift of rage keeps giving…
One could say that America was born from rage and grows from rage. I learned that firsthand at the Women’s March four years ago, when my country was mired in a sea of outrage that reached across the globe. On January 21, 2017, nearly 100,000 people in my hometown of Portland, Oregon participated in one of the largest protests the city had ever seen on a single day.
Despite the fury we held, no violence occurred. No arrests were made. And no glass was shattered, except for the glass ceiling pieces lodged in place when the woman who won the majority of votes for the presidency was legally denied the office.
While anger and resentful disgust fueled The Women’s March, joy and inspiration were the prevailing emotions during the actual protest. Any disappointment I had about being born too late for the 1960s cultural revolution evaporated in a sea of powerful women that Saturday afternoon. I went with several friends and we all felt the coherence: chants rising and falling in unison like birds knowing when to shift course; women from every corner of our community forming a sisterhood.
In retrospect, that day may have seeded the renewed activism which helped save…
