A rebranded Women’s March returns before Trump’s inauguration

When Elisabeth Bramble and her sister stepped out of the Washington Metro to join the massive crowds during the 2017 Women’s March, she counted it as one of the most powerful moments of her life.

On Saturday, she boards a bus from 2 a.m. packed with North Carolinians heading to the nation’s capitol as the Women’s March returns ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration under a new name: The People’s March.

“We’re marching once again for our daughters and our granddaughter,” Bramble said. “We’re marching for our immigrant community. We’re marching for our LGBTQ community.”

Organizers say the renamed and reorganized march has absorbed criticism and moved past the internal turmoil that consumed the movement after the hugely successful march eight years ago, the day after Trump’s first inauguration.

Now, as Democratic political leaders across the country search for ways to reconnect with voters after the party’s devastating election loss last fall, organizers of the People’s March hope to broaden their base, chart a new direction and move beyond a single day of action to help progressive voters find a political home.

Saturday’s march is expected to draw as many as 50,000 people, far fewer than the 2017 Women’s March. It is one of several protests, rallies and vigils focused on abortion, rights, immigration rights and the Israel-Hamas war planned ahead of the inauguration on Monday.

The People’s March will focus on a broader set of goals around women’s and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration, climate and democracy, rather than more narrowly on Trump himself, as the Women’s March did before his first inauguration, said Tamika Middleton, executive director. of the Women’s March. Under the protest’s new name, the group is also trying to broaden support and reflect the priorities of a larger coalition of organizations.

“We recognize the necessity of having a really broad coalition that brings people in,” Middleton said. “We’re asking ourselves how do we build a big tent that allows for the kind of multi-racial, multi-class, multi-gender mass movement that can make a difference politically for years to come.”

The Women’s March was launched in 2017 as a grassroots group of women outraged by Trump’s presidential victory in 2016. The demonstration brought over 500,000 marchers to Washington, and millions more demonstrated in cities across the country, marking one of the largest single-day demonstrations in the US history.

Images of women in pink pussy hats and holding megaphones announcing calls for public action became the enduring image of the inauguration march. But this year, organizers and political analysts have described a more somber moment of reflection following the loss of Vice President Kamala Harris. Middleton acknowledged exhaustion among many progressives.

The run-up to the 2017 inauguration was a time of “anger, frustration, disbelief that someone so conscious of mocking our political norms and denigrating women, people of color and immigrants could be elected,” said Basil Smikle, a political strategist and professor at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies.

“And that disbelief played out in more extroverted resistance like the Women’s March,” he said.

This year is a quieter moment of introspection and building support for communities that will be most affected by Trump’s policies, so lower protest participation makes sense, he said.

“People are tired,” Smikle said. “This resistance has gone on for eight years and there is a sense that things have not improved.”

The general malaise on the left is being felt across the country as Democrats and progressives enter a period of political soul-searching following Trump’s decisive victory and Republicans gaining control of Congress.

A post-election ebb in enthusiasm for politics and government has about two-thirds of American adults saying they have recently felt the need to limit media consumption of both topics because they felt overloaded, according to a survey in December from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The dropout is more pronounced among Democrats, but is also reflected among Republicans, according to the poll.

Democrats are also less likely than Americans overall to feel “happy” or “hopeful” about 2025, according to an AP-NORC poll carried out in December. Instead, about 4 in 10 Democrats said “stressed” described their feelings extremely or very well, while about a third of Democrats said so about “gloomy.”

Middleton said the goal is not to recreate the numbers from the 2017 march. Instead, it’s to energize voters and attract new members to the movement after what she called a brutal 2020 election season.

“We need to keep bringing in new people for a movement to be sustainable and to relieve some of the pressure from those who need to rest,” she said.

In the years following 2017, the Women’s March split internally as the group faced accusations of racism and anti-Semitism. It was also scrutinized for being more focused on the voices of white women versus women of color and the LGBTQ+ community, a rift that caused sponsors to pull support and leadership to change.

Raquel Willis, a transgender activist and co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movement, was anxious before speaking at the 2017 march because she “knew the history of trans exclusion within feminist movements.”

“There was a particular focus on white women and their concerns,” she said. “And there was limited discussion of white supremacy, capitalism, queerness and transphobia.”

Since then, the Women’s March has become a “key collaborator” with her group, and Willis will return this year as a speaker, she said. Willis said she has seen the organization go through a “leadership transformation.”

“The Women’s March is in a different era and deserves a chance to show us what their expanded vision is,” she said.

In light of the 2026 midterm elections, organizers said a goal of the People’s March is to help participants find a political home. The march will include themes around feminism, racial justice, anti-militarization and other topics, and will end with discussions held by various social justice organizations.

Before their seven-hour bus ride to Washington, Bramble and other members of the Guilford County Women Dems and Friends gathered at a bar in High Point, North Carolina, this week to hand out matching vests and make posters. The group launched a GoFundMe to offset costs and provide bus seats for students.

“We need to meet people and network and gather ideas about how we can energize at a local level,” she said. “When the march is over, we won’t stop.”

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Fernando reported from Chicago.

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