The day after Donald Trump took the oath of office, inaugurating him 45th president of the United States, upwards of 500,000 demonstrators flocked to the capital to march in solidarity with the marginalized groups most threatened by the rhetoric and the specter of the Trump administration's damaging policies. Other cities across the country saw similarly impressive turnout from those who couldn’t make it to Washington, D.C.: 750,000 Angelenos; 400,000 New Yorkers; 250,000 Chicagoans; and more than 8,000 in Park City, where the Sundance Film Festival had just gotten underway that weekend. (As the ladies of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast pointed out, this turnout surpassed the population of Park City itself.)
Stephanie Eckardt and I were just two of the many hundreds of reporters who flocked to the closest demonstration to observe and take part in the march. We spoke with young women and old men; high schoolers and seasoned protesters; and siblings and whole families. Their stories—why they marched, who they marched for, and what comes next—are part of a new special compilation magazine that combines narratives, essays, and on-the-ground reporting and exceptional photography from across The New Yorker, Vogue and Teen Vogue, Glamour, Vanity Fair, and our own work in W. Entitled Rise Up!, the issue is out this week.
As Trump, the former reality television star-turned-politician, enacts executive orders threatening the civil rights of immigrants and trans individuals, these stories are more important than ever, a reminder of the galvanizing force of thousands of bodies mobilizing towards a united goal. Some marchers came for racial justice, others for gun control advocacy; some marched against police brutality and others against the encroaching pressure on reproductive rights. There were environmental activists and union members and educators. This was something the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington underlined: Each person could march for their own personal reasons, but the march as a whole emphasized how each of these issues were inextricably linked.
The issue opens with a foreword by Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive describing the scene on the ground across the world and the after effects we’ve already begun to feel: the uptick in attendance at protests gathering at airports protesting the immigration ban; the near-daily marches on various government offices; the mobilization against threats to Planned Parenthood, which is on the cusp of being defunded. “In the days after the march, the action felt real,” she writes. “Women everywhere began throwing postcard parties, lobbying government—or considering running for office themselves.”
The pieces that follow offer takes from New Yorker editor David Remnick on Hillary Clinton, Vogue’s Julia Felsenthal on the organizers behind the march, Glamour’s Erin Reimel and Krystin Arneson on the “pussyhats,” Teen Vogue contributor Grace Dolan-Sandrino on the particular perspective of trans women, Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson on Carrie Fisher, the new posthumous figurehead of the resistance, and from us over here at W, testimonials from the varied, diverse marchers about what they felt on Jan. 21.
The issue is filled with stunning documentary images capturing the marches across the globe: the faces, the signs, the speakers. It’s a microcosm of all the reporting that came out around the march, and it offers a snapshot of what became the largest protest in United States history, with more than 3 million marchers around the world. And it’s all in one place.
Get to know the women behind the Women's March on Washington: