By Sarah Ford | Sonoma Sun — Starting at noon on Saturday, January 20, a huge, enthusiastic crowd — estimated at around 2,000 — gathered at the Sonoma Plaza for the 2018 Women’s March.
Creative hand-made signs floated above a sea of pink hats and reflected the many issues on the minds of March attendees – such as “I am Worthy,” “Science is Real,” “Stop Silencing WOC,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Love is Love,” “Build Kindness not Walls,” and “Our Rights are Not up for Grabs – and Neither are We!”
Children carried some of the most endearing signs, including “Donald Trump Be Nice! Save the Snow” and “We need more Hermiones.” A large poster with a colorful drawing of a line of children, holding hands to form a chain, read “This is Our Wall, Don’t Deport my Friends.”
The day kicked of with a number of inspiring speakers, all women, including Dmitra Smith (County Commission on Human Rights), SVHS senior Alyssa Schimm, Betzy Chavez (Family Resource Center), local advocate for educational equity Celeste Winders, Denia Candela (North Bay Children’s Center), Stinging Nettle owner Abi Huff, County Supervisor Susan Gorin, District Attorney Jill Ravitch, Mayor Madolyn Agrimonti, Jan Thompson representing Congressman Mike Thompson (who is in Washington), and Pastor Curran Reichert (First Congregational Church).
This year’s organizer, Angela Ryan, said “We as a committee were deliberate in our commitment to have as diverse a group of speakers as possible so that we lift and value the voices of all women.”
After the speakers, throngs of marchers slowly circled the Plaza holding up their signs, and lined the area where Broadway meets the Plaza horseshoe, eliciting nonstop supportive honks.
Ryan organized this year’s event along with Amy Gallagher and Sarah Carroll, in collaboration with many local organizations and progressive activists, including the Democratic Club, La Luz, and Sonoma Valley Resistance.
Ryan said, “Our focus was to build on the success of last year’s grassroots demonstration. We added music, tables, and speakers.”
The March organizers reached people through their Facebook page and word of mouth, and hoped to generate renewed focus on the task of “taking back our country by empowering and elevating the voices of women,” Ryan said.
While last year’s March was a much-needed cathartic expression of anger and frustration, this year’s focused on channeling the emotions of the past year into action, in areas such as “voting, supporting female candidates, combating sexual violence, and resisting the destructive and racist policies of the current administration,” in Ryan’s words.
She continued, “Now that the March is over, the wish for 2018 is that the emotions of today do not wane, but continue to…persist so that we can propel women to take our rightful seats at the table and begin the work of making our country the just, fair, and equitable place we know it can be.”
Great music related to the themes of the March played in between speakers, such as Bob Marley’s “Get Up Stand Up,” Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On,” Audra Day’s “Rise Up,” and Michael Franti’s “Crazy, Crazy, Crazy.”
Not a single mention of the March for Life.
The women’s march IS a march for life – our lives!
Wow, organizing a women’s march in Sonoma…… will definitely change the world. It’s almost as tough to get thousands of women together in Sonoma to march against President Donald J Trump as it would be to gather 5-10,000 Patriotic Americans in Kansas or Alabama to attend a Trump rally. Hopefully the organizers feel significant about gathering Nasty women who just want Instagram photos.