Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Women descend on DC
Area women participate in ‘March on Washington’
Five Coach USA buses left the Springfield Mall early Saturday, long before the sun rose above the horizon joining the 1.2 million who made their way the day after the presidential inauguration to express their concerns and discontent and to make their voices heard.
The Women’s March on Washington began as a simple idea, a way for those unhappy with the November election to take action.
While women were marching in Washington, D.C. with their friends and family, others marched closer to home in Philadelphia. Thousands of women, men and families swarmed Logan Circle and spilled out onto Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the Women’s March on Philadelphia.
The march was started to send a message to the new presidential administration that women’s rights are human rights. The Philadelphia march was one of many sister marches to the National Women’s March on Washington, D.C. Other marches took place in cities across the United States, as well as other countries around the world.
Keith Pension of Malvern remembered what led her to board the Delco bus so early in the morning.
“The day after the election, I was so gobsmacked,” she said. “Really, I thought I had awaken from a nightmare.”
Never prone to depression, Pension said in hindsight, she thought she was experiencing some symptoms of that, especially as she
— Keith Pension “I feel the need for women to unite and to make our presence known. I don’t think I could say ‘no’ and feel good about myself.”
thought, “I think I’ll stay under the covers with the dogs.”
Then, she heard about the Women’s March and she thought it would be an appropriate way to honor Civil Rights leaders and activists who had advocated and marched in the past.
On Saturday, standing in the wall-to-wall crowds by the National Museum of the American Indian, she was glad she made the trip.
“I feel the need for women to unite and to make our presence known,” Pension said. “I don’t think I could say ‘no’ and feel good about myself.”
She said she had a distaste for President Donald Trump early in the campaign season that grew as it prolonged. “The put-down of the Khan family was a new low,” Pension said.
However, it wasn’t until the transition began that the Chester County resident felt compelled to stand up. “When I got frightened was the first Cabinet nomination,”
she said of Trump’s pick of U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. for attorney general. “One is worse than the other. So, I’m scared.”
Shelly Rahman of Newtown Square had a similar post-Election Night experience. “The day after the election, I was so upset,” she said. “(I thought,) ‘Who cares? Everything is falling apart.’”
Yet, as more of her friends and family members asked if she was planning to attend the march, her attitude shifted. “All of a sudden, I thought it might not be a bad idea to go,” she said.
On Saturday, Rahman said she was glad she did. “The primary reason I’m here is to show unity,” she said. “This is unity for everybody. People are upset about the election. I am ignoring that – I have work to do.”
State Rep. Leanne Krueger-Braneky, D-161, of Swarthmore, put aside her official capacity and exercised her right as an individual to participate in the march. She was surrounded by a bevy of Delco women from Maggie Dee of Rose Valley to Nicole Johns of Lansdowne to Upper Darby School Director Heather Boyd and she even had former Secretary of State John Kerry walk past her.
Krueger-Braneky shared what being on the mall was like for her. “It’s incredible to be in the midst of such an incredibly large, diverse, peaceful gathering,” she said. “There are steelworkers from Pennsylvania on my left, doctors on my right and we’re still miles away from the stage.”
At 1 p.m., the time the rally on the National Mall was to move the masses into the march along Pennsylvania Avenue, the crowds silenced, then launched into a chant, “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Donald Trump has got to go!”
That was not the only rallying cry of the day. “Tell me what democracy looks like!” crowds chanted along the side of the U.S. Capitol. “This is what democracy looks like!” came the responding chant.
Krissy Balay, a Collingdale native who now lives in Chester Springs, walked amidst the throngs. “It’s so emotional,” she said. “Look at all the faces.” She pointed out a man wearing a National Rifle Association hat and a shirt with a safety pin.
“It just feels powerful and hopeful,” Balay said. “You can feel the vibration. I don’t feel like people are sitting here feeling defeated. She said she was moved by the diversity of the masses from gender, age, race, religion and sexual orientation. “This is what it’s supposed to be,” Balay said. “It’s we, not me.”
For her, maintaining as much of the Affordable Care Act as possible was essential, as her husband, Mike, survived open heart surgery 14 years ago and may need to have another medical procedure. She said she recalled seeing his bill at the time and it was thousands and thousands of dollars.
“You don’t get how this stuff impacts you,” she said. “People don’t think that it affects them until it does.” Balay said she was also marching for her children, 7-year-old Mason and 4-year-old McKenna. “I just want to know that I did everything I could to make the world better for them,” she said. “Even if I didn’t, I want them to see that I tried.”
“These signs are fantastic,” a Media woman who simply goes by M.C. said as she read several aloud including, “Fight Like a Girl” and “Keep Your Capitalism Off My Health Care.”
“The signs are phenomenal,” she said. “(Trump) gives so much material.”
Yet, there was a sea of signs, addressing many issues such as women’s health care to immigration to gay and lesbian rights, among others. “Nasty Woman” was a popular sign and T-shirt.
One girl held a sign reading, “I’m a Smart, Strong, Sensual Woman!” to which Shelly Rahman cheered, “Oh you are! Of course you are!”
Even with the thousands and thousands in attendance and long lines in everything from Metro stations to food trucks to port-a-potties, the overall mood remained cordial with crowds thanking service men and women and police for their service and with many being polite to each other, saying, ‘excuse me’ as they walked through snaking lines.
Francine Balay of Newtown Square remembers talking to her daughter, her daughter-in-law and her nieces about the importance of taking action. She said she told them “that it is going to take another women’s revolution.”
She herself recalled earlier times when women were actively engaged in rallying for their rights. “I’m going to be 70 and we were doing this in our 20s,” Balay said. “We’re still doing this 50 years later? There is something seriously wrong.”
However, she said she was inspired by the large numbers of younger women participating in the march Saturday. Balay said more action will be needed in the days ahead. “This can’t be a one-day event,” she said. “This has to go on and on and on. They have to stand up and say ‘no.’ It can’t be a silent voice. My hope is that it inspires every single one of these people to do this every single day. If Trump has done anything good, it is awaken a sleeping giant.”
Rahman agreed, adding that all elected officials need to take these voices into account. “Nobody can be quiet anymore,” Balay added. “I think we were too quiet.”
Some of the marchers believe this will continue. “I basically believe in the integrity and the intelligence of the American people,” Francine Balay said. “Sometimes until you lose something, you don’t appreciate it. I have faith in our basic ability to survive this ugliness.”