Amid the hundreds of thousands of participants, over 300 Wesleyan students played samba, chanted, marched and bugled at the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C. on Sunday.
Gathering on the National Mall at 10 a.m., the 165 students who rode down on three buses met with students who came down independently in the designated Wesleyan area of the Mall. The morning speakers, addressing the crowd from a stage next to the Washington Monument, included Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), comedian Ana Gasteyer and several spoken-word poets and musicians.
“This administration is filled with people who disparage sexual harassment laws, who claim the pay gap between women and men is phony … who consider Roe v. Wade the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history,” Clinton said.
Clinton also encouraged the crowd to elect Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) as President in November, which elicited cheers from the crowd and chants of “Hillary! Hillary!”
“The speakers have been my favorite part,” said Julia Perciasepe ’07, waiting on the Mall for the march to begin.
The Wesleyan group began marching around 12:30 p.m., stopping often as part of the large crowd trying to move to the street. The samba band, a group of students using buckets, jugs, and other non-traditional objects as percussion, led chants with the Wesleyan group and surrounding marchers.
“The samba band was incredible,” said John Wesley ’06, whose bugle added to the cheers. “They are such a presence at any event they go to.”
The march route went around the Ellipse between the Washington Monument and the White House, then through the city streets back to the Mall.
“[Marching] in the middle of the crowd, I felt like I was part of such a significant thing,” Wesley said.
“It’s really incredible,” said Megan Lollie ’07. “There are so many people from all over. It’s so great to be outside of the Wesleyan bubble and here with every sort of person.”
A wide variety of groups displaying t-shirts, pins and banners were represented at the march, ranging from the Republicans for Choice to the Unitarian Universalist groups.
“It’s easy in a college group to forget that there’s a world outside and to get really caught up in our studies,” said Gina Eichenbaum-Pikser ’05, one of the University march organizers. “I think it’s important to participate in the world outside Wesleyan.”
Though several students noted the wide range of ages represented at the march, feminist leader Gloria Steinem, as quoted in The New York Times, said, “More than a third of the women in this march are women under 25.”
Exact estimates for the number of marchers are unavailable, and reports between police and march organizers vary widely. As reported at cnn.com, police estimated numbers between 500,000 and 800,000, while organizers claimed a crowd of 1.15 million. Organizers were spread throughout the Mall asking participants to sign in.
Regardless of numbers, the Wesleyan students attending asserted the march’s importance.
“[The march] has given me a sense of the importance of the issue,” said Julia Perciasepe ’07. “I hope to gain more knowledge about women’s rights and different perspectives about the issues to enhance my own knowledge.”
“I felt like it was so important to come because there’s so much at stake,” Eichenbaum-Pikser said. “Hopefully this huge turnout will open some eyes and perk up some ears and maybe we can get Bush out of office in November.”
While the march was non-partisan, many of the speeches and chants were specifically critical of the Bush administration. Signs like “Abort Bush” and “The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own” were paired with chants like “Bush is scary, we want Kerry!”
“Maybe his name gives him the idea that he knows how to manage our bushes better than we do,” said comedian Cybill Shepherd.
Several speakers and marchers described the march in terms of its place in history. T-shirts with the march logo said “I’m making history,” and comparisons were often made to pro-choice marches that had occurred in the past.
“I’m confident that the young people who have led this march today will lead our movement in a new wave of activism that will keep the right to choose alive for the next generation,” said Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
“I’ll remember when people talk about the march in 2004 that I was there and added my voice to the masses,” Wesley said.