OUR AUNTIE, WITH LOVE

Our potential is unlimited.

We rise.

—Alicia Keys

This story ends with the beginning.

The day after the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 21, 2017, was the Women’s March on Washington, the largest single-day protest in US history. Women were angry, sad, and ready to fight back. Women of color led the resistance. Tamika Mallory, executive director of the National Action Network; Carmen Perez, executive director of the Gathering for Justice; and Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab Association of New York, served as national co-chairs, along with Bob Bland. Planned Parenthood partnered with the march by providing staff. Other organizations that helped included the NAACP, AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org, Mothers of the Movement, Human Rights Watch, Black Girls Rock!, Emily’s List, and many more. Over a million people traveled on the Washington Metro that day.

The march started on Independence Avenue, at the southwest corner of the Capitol Building, and ran down toward the National Mall. Many other marches took place worldwide, and the main march in Washington was streamed on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In the United States, the number of marches was 408, and 673 worldwide. There were marches in Belgium, Kenya, Mexico, Costa Rica, Tanzania, and many more countries. There was even a march in Antarctica. Some 470,000 people came out to Washington. Five million people showed up in marches throughout the United States and 7 million worldwide.

It was a glorious day for Auntie Maxine, a feminist who had been fighting toward intersectionality and continuously pushing for the voices of Black woman to be heard. In the book Together We Rise, she described her experience at the march:

I had really begun to think that the women’s movement was lost, that younger women didn’t appreciate what we had done, and why. I thought they were more focused on their careers, thinking that a women’s movement didn’t enhance their opportunity for upward mobility, that they didn’t want to be aligned with it. They didn’t think they needed it . . . I lined up to speak, and I could not believe what I saw. I had heard there would be 250,000 people present; it was more like a million. It was unlike any march I’d been to before . . . Going in, I had been feeling disappointed, even a bit resentful, toward the younger generation. I was under the impression that they thought what we had done for women’s rights wasn’t important. But seeing the size and passion of the crowd and realizing that the younger women there recognized what we had done and that they were carrying our torch made me realize I’d been completely wrong . . . We walked from the stage all the way to the White House and I was in a state of euphoria.

The march was a mecca of resistance. The Pussyhat Project pushed for the creation of pink hats that resembled female genitalia, and people all around the country started crafting the hats. There was a website for how to do it—whether sewing, knitting, or crocheting, sis. Powerful women spoke at the march, including America Ferrera, Gloria Steinem, Scarlett Johansson, Cecile Richards, Angela Davis, Ashley Judd, Melissa Harris-Perry, Kamala Harris, Janet Mock, Janelle Monáe, Kristin-Rowe Finkbeiner, Ai-jen Poo, Donna Hylton, and many more amazing women. Alicia Keys performed, okay.

The women were outraged by the president-elect. Auntie Maxine was completely transparent about her feelings about him from the very beginning, and so when he was elected, she said publicly, “I’ve never seen anybody as disgusting or as disrespectful as he is.” She refused to go to Trump’s inauguration. She didn’t attend his first speech before Congress. She posted memes of Trump’s administration as the Kremlin Klan, and said, “I don’t honor this president. I don’t respect this president. And I’m not joyful in the presence of this president.” Damn, what a read, but that’s exactly what many Americans felt. Auntie Maxine served the tea and the crackers, and she’s called for his impeachment since his election.

Her resistance is based as much in policy as it is in calling out BS like the Tea Party. She said straight-up that “the Tea Party can go straight to hell.” If you’re trying to rummage through the mess of the Trump administration to find some clarification, Auntie Maxine will pave the way. She pushed for an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections and Trump’s possible collusion. In an interview with Refinery29, she said, “We are going to call Donald Trump to task. We’re going to investigate. And we’re going to use the power that we now have to make sure that the American people understand how dangerous this president is.”

Auntie Maxine speaks the truth and has inspired others today to do the same. Other women in Congress are following her lead.

She has paved the way for new generations like Queens of the Resistance Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, who all serve on her committees. She has inspired and mentored women like Kamala Harris, and stood beside other strong women like Queens of the Resistance Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren, ride-or-die style, through thick and thin for justice.

Auntie Maxine continues to embrace her nickname because she understands her legacy. We see you, Auntie! And she wants us to know that she sees us too. She wants us to know, “Young Black women are understanding that they, too, can not only be elected to office, they can lead this country. And I’m very pleased, so I don’t want anybody to be discouraged, I don’t want anybody to think, I can’t do that. You can. You can do whatever you want to do. I want you to have the confidence and the understanding that you deserve success and you deserve to lead. I can’t be here forever! You’ve got to come do this stuff, okay?”