Women's March 2019: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Marches In NYC, Kirsten Gillibrand Speaks in Iowa

Temperatures in New York City and Washington D.C. were near freezing for the 2019 Women’s March, which is cloaked in controversy this year, but the third annual march still drew an impressive, though smaller, crowd on the East Coast and around the world.

This year, allegations of anti-semitism have created a shadow over the March, and organizers addressed those allegations for the D.C. crowd, according to CNN:

“Over the last year, my sisters in Women’s March and I have faced accusations that have hurt my soul,” said board member Carmen Perez-Jordan. “Charges of anti-Semitism and neglecting our LGBTQIA family. And I want to be unequivocal in affirming that Women’s March and I and my sisters condemn anti-Semitism and homophobia and transphobia in all forms.”

And in Des Moines, Iowa, where she’s currently campaigning for president, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand spoke to protestors, emphasizing the idea that there’s no place for anti-semitism in the Women’s March:

“We know there is no room for anti-Semitism in our movement. We know this,” she told the crowd, huddled inside the Iowa State Capitol to escape the cold. “We know that our movement is empowered when all of us lift each other up.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez braved the cold in New York City, marching alongside protesters there: “All of these women are coming together in solidarity with each other, to support each other, and to make sure that every single voice is amplified, protected and advanced in the United States of America,” she told CNN.

She also spoke at the Women’s Unity Rally in Manhattan, which organizers say is focused on demanding “equal justice for black women, immigrant women, women of color, and gender nonconforming people.”

Though The New York Times is reporting “much smaller crowds than in years past” it definitely wasn’t tiny. And while 2017’s Women’s March was, at least for me, a rage fueled gallop past Trump Tower in the wake of the inauguration, this year, despite the infighting and the fact that many of the people in charge still don’t seem to like women very much, 2019’s march was tentatively hopeful in light of the record number of women newly elected to Congress.

“We got the House, now what are we going to do with it?” Ocasio-Cortez asked the crowd at the Women’s Unity Rally. “Now we are going to get all the houses, including the white one in 2020.”