Signs and support dominated the Women’s March on Charlotte this weekend
Until Saturday, I had never seen so many signs sporting the word “pussy” in my life. There I was, inching my way into the tremendous, undulating blob of marchers at the Women’s March on Charlotte. And everywhere I turned during that two-mile march, there it was: Pussy. “This pussy grabs back.” “This pussy has claws.”
There were plenty of allusions to that word, too, by way of pussycat imagery and, in one creative and startling case, a stuffed feline strapped to a toddler’s toy car.
Like many Women’s Marches around the nation, this one was organized to coincide with the Women’s March on Washington following Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.
I had never seen so many people moving through the streets of uptown, except when the Charlotte Marathon is sweeping through. There was such huge participation — at least 10,000 people showed up, according to CMPD estimates — that I was actually late for the march.
I was standing at the East/West Boulevard Station on the Blue Line, ticket in hand, waiting for the train with a flock of sign-carrying men and women at 9:35 a.m., only to have the train pull up with the announcement that the vessel was at capacity. Indeed, the doors opened and the cars were bursting at the seems with smiling, apologetic women.
No matter. My boyfriend and I joined the stream of people walking the nearly two miles along the Rail Trail toward First Ward Park, where the march was scheduled to begin.
Even during this mini-march en route to the actual march, an air of community started to rise. Women shouted in support from a store front. Cars honked in (seeming) support from the I-277 loop as we crossed the College Street bridge into uptown.
We got there and the marchers were already moving — slowly. And the first sights I took in, aside from the open mouths of people cheering, were the signs.
Oh, the signs. There were so many.
There were the pussy signs.
There were defiant signs: “Keep your rosaries away from my ovaries.” “Get your laws off my body.” “Nasty woman hear me roar!”
Bold signs: “Mike Pence has never satisfied a woman in his life.”
Clever signs: “Girls just want to have FUN (-damental) rights.” “Pizza rolls not gender roles.”
Abbreviated signs: “OMG GOP WTF?”
True signs: “No human being is illegal.”
Sad signs: “Cancer patients terrified of repealing Obamacare.”
Sweet signs: “Make America kind again.”
Peace signs.
The march spilled into Romare Bearden Park at the end of the route. Mayor Jennifer Roberts was seen giving short, impromptu speeches. Live music was playing. People were surging in and staying to hang out. Some chanted in the name of democracy and justice. And still those signs were held high everywhere the eye could see.
The march hasn’t changed the fact that Donald Trump is president of the U.S. It hasn’t changed his plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or that he’s uttered so many misogynistic comments.
But it shows that people have a space to be heard and seen in Charlotte, and it’s beautiful to know that so many other cities were experiencing something similar across the nation. Washington, D.C., alone saw hundreds of thousands of people marching.
And the people marching were part of something peaceful. In Charlotte, strangers chatted, admired each other’s sign handiwork. Wives and husbands, mothers and sons, dads and daughters, boyfriends and girlfriends, black and white — they were all there.
Though the march was brought on by a change in political administration, it wasn’t a “rage through the streets” uprising. It was a show of support, a shot of serotonin to this city. Not to mention a big shot of estrogen.
It brought a crowd together in the streets with a magnitude we don’t often see here. And we’re all uncertain about what comes next in our lives, let alone in America.
As I overheard one woman telling her child, “We’re walking the rest of the route. And then we’re figuring out what’s next.”
This story was originally published January 23, 2017 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Signs and support dominated the Women’s March on Charlotte this weekend."