Hundreds of participants gathered in front of the Heritage Foundation building in D.C.’s Capitol Hill neighborhood on Nov. 9 to protest in support of reproductive rights.
Women’s March, the protest organization responsible for the 2017 Women's March, organized the protest on very short notice following this year’s election. The 2017 march drew hundreds of thousands to the National Mall to protest president-elect Donald Trump’s first victory.
Following Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, Managing Director of Women’s March Tamika Middleton said the organization felt the immediate emotions of their supporters and wanted to channel that into action.
“We want to make sure that [The Heritage Foundation] knows we're watching, we're paying attention and we will be standing up and resisting,” Middleton said to The Eagle.
The Heritage Foundation is a non-profit conservative research and education institution and the primary author of Project 2025, a document composed of policy proposals for a Republican presidential administration. Project 2025 includes efforts to restrict reproductive rights and roll back sex discrimination protections, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
Speaking to a crowd during the protest, Middleton called the document “oppressive” and said the Foundation seeks to “undermine and erode our very democracy.”
“There's never been a perfect democracy, especially for marginalized folks,” Middleton said to the crowd. “But what we cannot do is go backwards, right?”
The demonstration was part protest, part dance party. A truck parked between the crowd of protesters and the Heritage Foundation building was equipped with band equipment, speakers and a large green banner reading “We won’t go back.”
The truck played various R&B and hip-hop songs, while the crowd swayed along. Some time into the event, however, a go-go band, playing a subgenre of funk that originated in D.C., took the stage on the truck and began playing covers of songs such as ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’.
Occasionally, the music stopped and Middleton shouted call and response chants.
“What side are you on?” Middleton said, with the crowd responding “We’re on the freedom side.”
Various signs bobbed above the crowd, among swaying hands, colorful horns and spoons hitting pans, reading “Men of quality don’t fear equality,” “Women are watching,” and “America, seriously? A dictator?”
Trish Todaro, a retired educator from Surf City, North Carolina, held a sign that read “We will resist, we will persist” on one side. The other side had a message saying if abortion pills are regulated, men’s Viagra pills should receive the same treatment.
“If women's rights are going to be regulated by the government, then I think men's health should also be regulated,” Todaro said. “And that if you are no longer able to perform sexually, we should not allow you to get chemicals to help you do that and impregnate more women that might be endangered.”
Todaro said she attended for her three daughters and one granddaughter, soon to be two.
“I want to let everyone out there know that we still have rights and we can still take action, and that the election doesn't mean that we're going to just sit by and watch everyone's rights taken away,” Todaro said.
This is Todaro’s third march and second women’s march. She plans to volunteer at Planned Parenthood as a safe person to walk women in from the parking lot.
Brandy Gonzalez is also no stranger to protesting on the issue of women’s rights. She participated in the 2017 Women’s March in California while a student, and has since donated money to Women’s March.
She said she hoped that money raised during the march would go to Planned Parenthood if that organization is defunded, or be used to provide abortion pills and birth control to people without access to them.
“Money talks,” Gonzalez said. “If you can have the appropriate lawyers and the appropriate sources, you can take a lot of action.”
Women’s reproductive rights were not the only thing protesters had on their minds. Sammy Cross, was wrapped in a pride flag and held a sign saying “Respect my existence or expect my resistance.”
“We're here today, because we don't know what else to do, except for just to take a stand,” Cross said. “I was in hysterics after I saw the election results and I needed to do something.”
Cross flew to D.C. from San Diego. They’re too young to vote, but decided coming here to protest was the next best option.
“There's nothing else I can really do except scream,” Cross said.
Project 2025 also details potential plans to erase terms such as sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion, gender equality and others “out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists,” according to Axios.
Trump repeatedly made efforts to distance himself from The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 during his 2024 campaign. However, at least 140 people involved with the initiative have worked for the former president, according to an investigation by CNN.
While the audience engaged in chants, dances and songs, a group of young men, some with Make America Great Again hats, watched the protest from a nearby sidewalk. Some took selfies and laughed.
Spencer Silbey was with the group, and voted for Trump in the 2024 election. He said he happened to walk by on the way back from lunch and stopped to watch.
“I think it's understandable that there would be outrage, given the fact that D.C. went, you know, by a ridiculous margin for Kamala,” Silbey said to The Eagle. “I think it's not reflective of the will of the country.”
Silbey disagrees with the protesters, saying that the election was a “moral referendum” on the direction the country will take.
“The people have spoken. Democracy has spoken, as these protesters have so boldly pronounced,” Silbey said.
After over an hour, the go-go band paused before their last song to let Middleton speak one last time, encouraging the crowd to turn out for a People’s March on Jan. 18, 2025. The march, planned to be held two days before the inauguration, includes organizers such as American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, who expect 50,000 people to attend, according to the Washington Post.
“This is just the beginning of the resistance against our incoming president,” Middleton said to the crowd.
This article was edited by Mackenzie Konjoyan, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Sabine Kanter-Huchting and Ella Rousseau.
