The handful of propane heaters could only do so much to warm the frigid evening air on the rooftop as a crowd began to gather. But the more than 200 people that amassed atop the Station House in downtown St. Pete, where a man with an acoustic guitar was warming up the crowd with Paul Simon and Traveling Wilburys tunes, weren’t deterred.
For some, it was practice for an even chillier clime — Washington, DC, where many of the Station House party’s attendees will be headed for a whirlwind weekend trip directly on the heels of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration. The ‘Burg event aimed to raise money to help hundreds of Tampa Bay area activists attend the Jan. 21 Women’s March on Washington via bus.
The was just one of many happenings locally and elsewhere planned to bring together diverse groups with one thing in common: concern for the threat a Trump administration, a GOP Congress and a potentially much more conservative judiciary may pose to everything from civl rights to environmental protection.
Lisa Perry, a coordinator for the DC-bound buses from Pinellas County, said some 10,000 people are expected to head up from Florida for the march, which is is expected to draw hundreds of thousands to the nation’s capital.
Perry said it’s not about protesting the results of the election — the Electoral College is the law of the land, even if Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by some three million. It’s about sending a message that those whose interests aren’t in line with those of Trump, his cabinet or the GOP-led Congress are still here. And they aren’t going anywhere.
“We are going there to stand up for women’s rights and human rights,” Perry said. “We realize that he won, and nobody’s fighting that. What we’re fighting is the legislation that he’s trying to push through that literally threatens so many of the constituents that he’s supposed to be representing as Commander-in-Chief. We have so many problems with most of the cabinet members that he’s appointed. And if you go out into the community, there is visceral fear among women, men, children, everyone.”
Perry, who had worked on Clinton’s campaign, said she knew she had to do something in the wake of November 8, and right away she recognized there was momentum among her peers.
“The day after the election, my front porch was filled with women crying,” she said. So she connected with march organizers at the state and national levels, and now seats for the overnight bus trip are at a premium.
Across the bay, Tampa coordinator Marina Welch has had a similar response.
“I have one bus full of 56 people and I expect to fill the second bus by the end of this week,” she said. “We need to have our voices heard.”
Closer to home, a vast contingent of activists plans to march in downtown St. Petersburg that same day as something of a satellite event.
The main organizer of that event is Suzanne Benton, a longtime artist and activist, who said she’ll be celebrating her 81st birthday on the day of the march. When she found out no one was organizing anything locally in conjunction with Washington events, she took it upon herself to do so. And when she did, support poured in.
“People have come up… and out of the woodwork. The reason they have is that the moment is now. I’m not alone in my concern,” she said. “It’s happening.”
Another organizer of the event, Amy Weintraub, said she plans on bringing her kids to the St. Pete March
“We’re not alone in our disappointment, and we don’t have to feel like we are the minority,” she said. “It’s a reminder that all of the social justice issues that we care about must remain a priority.”
Event organizers are hoping the momentum and vigilance will last well beyond the post-inauguration marches; that Trump’s critics won’t just see the next four years as a time in which to mute the television whenever he speaks.
They hope that instead they can expand their network, and alert everyone within it every time a dubious U.S. Supreme Court nominee is up for a confirmation hearing or lawmakers try to cut Medicare or Social Security.
Nationally, the nascent Indivisible movement is using tactics the Tea Party employed in early 2009 in order to unite and inspire those who oppose Trump.
“It’s critical that we’re not diverted, that we effectively mobilize our resources in a way that maximizes our leverage,” said Michael Broache, who’s spearheading a local chapter of Indivisible. “And we do so in a way that focuses on things that are important to individuals here, and things that we could actually make a difference in doing.”
That could mean writing Congressional representatives, confronting them at town halls or ribbon cuttings, or using any other tactics that exploit politicians’ desire for popularity and, thus, good press.
The Saturday march is just the beginning, activists say.
“This is going to grow into a bigger thing,” Welch said.
Of course, one might ask why this momentum, if it’s as extensive as organizers say it is, wasn’t around when Clinton and her supporters were in the trenches fending off attacks from the left and the right.
“Because we didn’t feel threatened. We were enjoying our lives,” Benton said. “I don’t think we had any idea of the scope of people in this country who are not bothered by racism, by sexual harassment, by people not having equal rights… who are hostile to the vast tradition of immigration that we have all benefited from.”
Women’s March St. Pete; Sat., Jan. 21. Noon-3 p.m.; Begins at Demen’s Landing Park. womensmarch.com.
This article appears in Jan 12-19, 2017.