Exactly 24 hours after Donald Trump officially became (ugh) president, a crowd was gathering at Demens Landing, a large waterfront park in downtown St. Pete. Their aim was to show solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of people who marched in Washington, DC and elsewhere on Saturday.
It was the biggest event of its kind in the city's history, officials said. At least 20,000 people showed up.
As the prelude to the St. Pete leg of the Women's March began, Democratic emissaries took to a stage in the middle of the park to urge those gathered to stay vigilant and to fight any efforts by the Trump Administration to roll back civil rights and environmental protections.
The protesters who crammed into the park carried cleverly worded signs. Some wore outlandish getups, everything from Wonder Woman to goddess costumes. The pink hats were, of course, everywhere. The age range was diverse, though the crowd was mostly white, as one activist pointed out.
"I keep waiting for it to thin out there and it hasn't happened," said Kriseman, who stood on a sidewalk along Beach Drive facing the entrance to Demens Landing and greeted the marchers. "I've been standing out here for almost a half-hour. It's just remarkable."
Kriseman has long been a critic of Trump, and even made national headlines when he wrote a tongue-in-cheek tweet "banning" Trump from the city after Trump announced that he wants to ban muslims from traveling to the U.S. He said the march was a chance for St. Petersburg and the Tampa Bay area as a whole to vent their frustrations at the outset of a very uncertain era.
"It's the community's chance to stand up and voice that women's rights are important, diversity is important," he said.
Here are more photos from the event:
This article appears in Jan 19-26, 2017.