The Seattle Women March Against Hate gathered on Seattle’s Capitol Hill Saturday to affirm equal rights for everyone in America, saying those rights are threatened by a Donald Trump administration
Brenda Elston appeared stunned.
She had traveled from Edmonds to Volunteer Park with her husband and teenage daughter Saturday morning, expecting to join a group of like-minded people in the Seattle Women March Against Hate.
The size of the crowd — which looked to be at least a thousand strong — rendered Elston nearly speechless as the group began its 1.1-mile march to Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill for a rally.
“One person made this happen,” she said as she scanned the crowd, consisting mostly of women but with a healthy dose of children and men. “What does it mean to me? It means everything. It’s so freeing and powerful. It gives you hope.”
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Elston, like others, said she was glad to have a productive outlet for her feelings of despair at the election of Donald Trump as the nation’s 45th president.
Demi Wetzel, a 27-year-old freelance writer who conceived the march, told the assembled group at a pre-march rally that her goal was to take a stand against hate.
“We’re never going to let hate permeate in our city,” she said to cheers. “Not now; not ever.”
Alanté Fields, 28, a graduate student in human centered design and engineering at the University of Washington, said she has felt unsettled since Trump’s election. As an African-American woman, she is more watchful now that white supremacists feel emboldened to speak freely and act on their racist beliefs, she said.
“This is active resistance,” Fields said. “I want to let (Trump) know we are not going to sit back and let him destroy this country.”
Kate Gruntz of Seattle’s Lakewood neighborhood said she was there in solidarity with all the people who say they now feel at risk.
“I’m privileged,” she said as she marched down Broadway. “This isn’t about me. We all know people at risk now, and we want to make it clear that we will protect them, and stand up with them, walk with them.”
The route was filled with colorful, handmade signs that mocked the president elect — “Orange Voldemort” and “Don the Con” — and expressed support for some of the groups Trump singled out during his campaign.
Jessi Murray carried a sign that read, “Say no to hate, and no to bigotry.” She said she intended to fight Trump’s administration in some way every single day.
“We are the in the majority,”’ she said, referring to candidate Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote, despite Trump’s victory in the electoral-college count. “And we are not going to cede that ground to him.”