Women's March draws thousands to downtown
Rally at Dayton’s Courthouse Square backs equality.
DAYTON — A few thousand women and supporters gath- ered at Courthouse Square on Saturday on the near one-year anniversary of the marches that took place the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The event was organized by Dayton Women’s Rights Alliance, along with Dayton Indivisible for All and others.
The rally is designed to engage and empower all people to support women’s rights, human rights, civil rights, disability rights, and many others seeking equality, according to the event’s Facebook page.
The march occurs in the midst of the #MeToo move- ment and the same week as the sentencing for former U.S. Gymnastics team Dr. Larry Nassar, who is accused of sexually molesting dozens of young girls under his care.
Sarah Powell of Fairborn said she came out for the event out of concern for her children’s future.
“I’m concerned that we’re taking things in a direction in our country that’s going to make it very hard my daughter and also my son to find equal footing. And really achieve what it is they want to achieve,” said the 40-yearold mother.
Powell also said she was concerned about the Trump administration’s reversal of business regulations that are designed “protect us” and passing issues “to keep rich people getting richer and to keep the little guy down. It affects women and minorities a lot more than my son ... but being from a poorer background it does affect us to.”
People were also at the march supporting immi- grants.
Edda and Reinhard Koppen emigrated legally from Germany in 1990, but they don’t see why illegal immigration is getting so much “hype.”
“We went through the process,” said Edda, a 53-year- old Springboro resident. “And we do absolutely believe people should have a way to become a legal immi- grant on this country.
“Right now there’s no reason for this hype of getting all of the immigrants out because we are very much at a pretty low unemployment rate and if these peo- ple would all leave I think it would not necessarily be good for the country,” she added.
While crowd estimates were unavailable Saturday afternoon, the event seemed to draw a similar number of people as last year’s event, which attracted about 3,000.