Days before Trump takes office, thousands of protesters march in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of people from across the United States rallied in the nation’s capital Saturday for women’s reproductive rights and other causes they say are under threat from the new Trump administration, taking over the former Women’s March days before President-elect Donald Trump’s second march. inauguration.

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Eight years after the historic first women’s march at the start of Trump’s first term, protesters said they were caught off guard by Trump’s victory and are now determined to show that support remains strong for women’s access on abortion, transgender people and the fight against climate change. and other problems.

The march is just one of several protests, rallies and vigils focused on abortion, rights, immigration rights and the war between Israel and Hamas planned before the inauguration Monday. Nationwide, more than 350 similar marches are taking place in every state.

Jill Parrish, of Austin, Texas, said she originally bought a plane ticket to Washington for what she thought would be the inauguration of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. She ended up changing the dates to protests before Trump was sworn in, saying the world should know that half of American voters did not support Trump.

“Most importantly, I am here to demonstrate my fear about the state of our democracy,” Parrish said.

Protesters gathered in squares around Washington before the march, beating drums and shouting chants under slate-gray skies and freezing wind. Protesters then marched to the Lincoln Memorial for a larger rally and fair, where organizations at the local, state and national levels will host informational tables.

They held signs with slogans such as “Save America” and “Against abortion? So don’t have one” and “Hate won’t win.”

There were brief moments of tension between protesters and Trump supporters. The march briefly stopped when a man wearing a red Make America Great Again hat and a green camouflage backpack entered a line of protesters ahead. Police intervened and peacefully separated him from the group while protesters chanted “We won’t take the bait.”

As protesters approached the Washington Monument, a small group of men wearing MAGA hats walking in the opposite direction appeared to attract the attention of a protest leader with a megaphone. The leader moved closer to the group and began chanting “No Trump, no KKK” into the megaphone. The groups were separated by high black fences and the police eventually gathered around them.

Rick Glatz, of Manchester, New Hampshire, said he came to Washington for the sake of his four granddaughters: “I’m a grandfather. And that’s why I walk.

Minnesota high school teacher Anna Bergman wore her original pink hat from her participation in the 2017 Women’s March, a moment that captured the shock and anger of progressives and moderates at Trump’s first victory.

With Trump returning, “I just wanted to be around like-minded people on a day like today,” Bergman said.

Rebranded and reorganized, the rally has a new name — the People’s March — as a way to broaden support, especially during a moment of reflection for progressive organizing following Trump’s decisive victory in November. The Republican is sworn in on Monday.

Women outraged by Trump’s 2016 presidential victory flocked to Washington in 2017 and held large rallies in cities across the country, laying the foundation for a grassroots movement known as the Women’s March . The Washington rally alone attracted more than 500,000 demonstrators, and millions more participated in local marches across the country, marking one of the largest single-day protests in state history -United.

This year, the crowd was well below the expected 50,000 participants, only a tenth of the size of the first march. The protest comes in a restricted moment of reflection as many progressive voters are experiencing feelings of exhaustion, disappointment and despair following Harris’ defeat.

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“Before we do anything for democracy, we must combat our own despair,” said one of the event’s first speakers, Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March.

The relative calm contrasted sharply with the fury of the inaugural rally as massive crowds shouted demands into megaphones and marched in pink hats in response to Trump’s first election victory.

“The reality is that it’s just hard to capture lightning in a bottle,” said Tamika Middleton, executive director of the Women’s March. “It was a really special moment. In 2017, we hadn’t seen a Trump presidency and the kind of vitriol that that represented.”

The movement fractured after the hugely successful day of protests amid accusations that it was not diverse enough. This year’s name change to Popular March is the result of an overhaul intended to broaden the group’s appeal. Saturday’s protest covered themes related to feminism, racial justice, antimilitarization and other issues and concluded with discussions hosted by various social justice organizations.

The People’s March is unusual in the “broad range of issues brought together under one umbrella,” said Jo Reger, a sociology professor who studies social movements at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Women’s suffrage marches, for example, focused on a specific goal: the right to vote.

For a large-scale social justice movement such as the march, conflicting visions are impossible to avoid and there is “immense pressure” on organizers to meet everyone’s needs, Reger said. But she also said some discord isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Oftentimes it brings change and new perspectives, especially those from underrepresented voices,” Reger said.

Middleton, of the Women’s March, said a massive protest like the one in 2017 was not the goal of Saturday’s event. Instead, its aim was to focus attention on a broader set of issues – women’s and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration, climate and democracy – rather than focusing it more closely around Trump.

“We don’t view the march as the end game,” Middleton said. “How do we get these people who are running into organizations and into their political homes so that they can continue to fight in their communities for the long term?”

Associated Press writers Gary Fields, Ellen Knickmeyer and Mike Pesoli contributed to this report.