When they set out for the 13-hour trek from Lutz to the nation’s capital, the women weren’t sure what to expect.
(Courtesy of Betsy Murdock)
Betsy Murdock, Ivana Sheppard, Ana Torres, Kathy Abrams and Katherine Pogorzelski shared a van to make the trip.
Along the way, they wondered how big the crowd would be and how diverse.
When they arrived to join the Women’s March on Washington, on Jan. 21, the experience vastly exceeded their expectations.
The crowd was huge, and diverse.
They saw women pushing strollers. Women walking with walkers. Women in wheelchairs. They saw young men holding signs, dads with kids on their shoulders, old men taking the Metro to be part of the march.
“It was an awe-inspiring experience for us all,” Sheppard said.
“The march breathed life into our belief in the common good that binds people of different races, genders, nationalities, sexualities, and all walks of life,” she said.
It was important to join the march, Torres said. “There were so many different issues that were affected by the election of Donald Trump that I was concerned about the vision that he represented … I didn’t want history to be written that said that we didn’t try to resist the vision that basically won the election.”
Abrams agrees it’s important to be involved: “I have never been active politically before. Now, I am.’”
Participating in the Women’s March was just the beginning, they said.
The March, Murdock said, was Day 1.
“It’s not ending at Day 1,” Murdock said.
Published February 1, 2017
