BANGOR, Maine – Streets in some of Maine’s largest cities and smallest towns filled with protesters, activists, and supporters on Saturday during the second-annual Women’s March, during which hundreds of thousands in the United States and beyond celebrated women, diversity, disenfranchised groups, and progressive causes.
The handwritten signs and colorful banners carried by more than 1,000 marchers in Bangor included denouncements of President Donald Trump, calls to replace GOP members of Congress Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Bruce Poliquin, support for issues including LGBTQ rights and the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and quotes and slogans promoting the power of women banding together.
The second incarnation of the Women’s March had a theme of “Power to the Polls,” kicking off what is hoped to be a national voter organizing movement before the midterm elections in November. Marches took place in municipalities across America, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Washington, D.C. and New York, as well as cities worldwide.
In Augusta, about 2,500 people took part in a demonstration organized by March Forth Maine. They marched around Capitol Park, a green that spreads out near the state legislature building and the governor’s mansion, and heard speeches by elected officials and campaigners working on a range of issues.
Women’s March-Maine planned a Sunday party in Portland, the state’s largest city where 10,000 gathered last year, instead of hosting another Women’s March on Saturday. Other Maine communities holding events included Bar Harbor, Gouldsboro, and Brunswick — and towns as small as Lubec, with a population around 1,300, and Kingfield, which has less than 1,000 residents and planned to hold a march on Sunday.
The pink “pussyhats” that were a staple of last year’s march – a cheeky symbol of protest against Trump’s bragging about sexual assault on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape – were still very much in style this year.
Pauline Perry from Etna, Maine, wore one of those hats, and carried a sign that read in part, “Keep your grabbing paws and fascist laws off our pussies, we won’t go back.” She said she attended the Bangor demonstration to “celebrate all people’s lives,” and to show her support for women’s reproductive rights and the civil liberties of immigrants, including “Dreamers” who were brought to the United States illegally as children.
“I think it’s important that we pass the Dream Act as soon as possible and let these young people know that they’ve been with us for a long time and they belong to us,” Perry said. “We are responsible to take care of them at this point.”
Linda Cousins of Newburgh, Maine, said she was there to empower and unite women. “And also because I’ve been outraged ever since November 2016, and I believe we need to use our voices and take our country back,” she added.
A Bangor resident named Cindy said she attended “because at my age, I thought we wouldn’t have to be doing this again.”
“When I was a young girl, we had the women’s movement, we thought we were going to be empowered. And yet, all these years later, we’re still not, we’re still fighting the same battles,” she said. “I guess I don’t want my granddaughter to have to continue to fight the same battles. So I’m glad to see so many like-minded people here standing up for women’s rights of all sorts.”
Sarah from Belfast, Maine, said she was there to support women, immigrants, and others who represent “the real roots of this country” as depicted in the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty. She is also unequivocal about wanting to see Trump impeached.
“He is behaving like a gangster and he needs to get his ass kicked out of the White House immediately,” she said. “He’s a pig, and everything he has said recently is so offensive. He’s trying to offend everyone on the entire planet, literally.”
Women’s Marchers move through downtown Bangor, Maine, on Jan. 20, 2018. (Photo: Brian P. D. Hannon)
Marchers gathered in front of Bangor’s library before moving out in a wide loop through the city center and eventually up a hill to the meeting house operated by the Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor.
Event organizer Stacy Leafsong, the founder of Maine Common Good Coalition, told 50 States of Blue she estimated 500 or more marchers squeezed into the building to hear a slate of speakers including state Rep. Barbara Cardone; Penobscot Indian Nation Tribal Ambassador Maulian Dana; Ambureen Rana, vice president of MaineTransNet; Bangor City Council member Clare Davitt; Kathryn Piper of the Islamic Center of Maine; University of Maine at Orono student and activist Desiree Vargas; Olivia Baldacci, president of the Women’s Interest Group of Bangor High School; and Samantha Paradis, the new mayor of Belfast.
Paradis became Belfast’s youngest mayor at age 26, after she upset the incumbent mayor who was running for his fifth term. The change her election brings to the city offices is part of a trend: many recent national and state elections have seen an unprecedented increase in campaigns by women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and other candidates who defy the traditional mold of American politician on every level of civic service.
Paradis noted that female representation in public office is growing — including in the U.S. Congress, where women currently make up just 19.8 percent of representatives — but that there is much room for improvement.
“We can do better and we have to,” Pardis said. “We need more women at the table and we need to pass down to our daughters the importance of women in leadership. We need to vote, we need to run for office, we need to support other women running for office, and we need to stand up and step forward.”
During her opening speech, Leafsong of Maine Common Good Coalition told the audience “we as citizens must grow.”
“In our division over liberal idealism we have allowed a great evil to take hold: the division that fosters hatred, misogyny, destruction, and greed,” she said. “The enlightenment we seek in our government will only come when we enlighten ourselves first.”