Hundreds from Lawrence area participating in Women’s March on Washington

At least three chartered buses are leaving from Lawrence for the capital; other residents to join affiliated marches in Topeka, KC

Dorothy Hoyt-Reed, Lawrence, gives her husband Ralph Reed a hug and a kiss as she prepares to board a bus headed to Washington, D.C., for Saturday's Women's March on Washington, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017. Over 50 Lawrence residents organized and left from Plymouth Congregational Church for the solidarity march.

On Saturday, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States, tens of thousands are expected to participate in the Women’s March on Washington.

Hundreds of Lawrence and area residents are on their way.

At least three chartered buses are leaving from Lawrence to carry people — most, though not all, are women — to the nation’s capital for the event. Other residents are heading there in smaller groups by road or plane.

Rev. Eleanor McCormick of Plymouth Congregational Church kneels in the driver's seat of a 56-passenger bus to get a group photograph of those on board headed to Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017, for Saturday's Women's March on Washington. The group left Thursday night from the church.

Though not naming Trump, the Women’s March on Washington mission statement calls the rhetoric of the presidential election insulting, threatening and demonizing to women and other marginalized groups.

“We join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore,” the mission statement says. “The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.”

Lawrence resident Megan Brokaw is a co-state administrator for the Women’s March on Washington initiative in Kansas. She said she volunteered to help with the Kansas chapter a few days after the election.

The group has organized three 54-passenger buses departing — two from Lawrence and one from Wichita — Friday morning, driving overnight to Washington, and leaving the capital Saturday evening after the march.

All three buses are full, Brokaw said. She said her group also helped coordinate ride-sharing for people who wanted to drive to Washington or were wait-listed for the buses.

Sisters and Lawrence natives, Tennery Carttar, Kansas City, Kan., right, Rebbecca Lu, Olathe, and Johanna Carttar, Lenexa, join hands next to their father Stephen Carttar, Lawrence, and his wife Cindy Carttar along with many others during a prayer just before boarding a bus headed for Washington, D.C., for Saturday's Women's March on Washington. The three sisters, along with their father and about 50 others boarded the bus at Plymouth Congregational Church on Thursday night.

Another 56-seat bus — also full — left Thursday night from Plymouth Congregational Church.

Associate Pastor Eleanor McCormick said a “generous” member of the congregation enabled the church to charter the bus. Other donations enabled people who couldn’t afford the $100 fee to ride.

Plymouth bus riders, mostly church regulars, will be hosted Friday night in the homes of members of another church congregation in Alexandria, Va., McCormick said.

Marches in Topeka and Kansas City, Mo., are among more than 600 “Sister Marches” expected to involve an additional 1.3 million people worldwide, according to the Women’s March on Washington website.

Lawrence residents are headed to those, as well.

Participants say they hope to keep gathering and continue their movement after they return.

Here are six of the Lawrence women who are planning to march in Washington or closer to home, and why they’re doing so.

Judy Prather

Prather, 64, is “very aware” that she is white, educated and has enjoyed a good life and support to realize her potential.

Judy Prather

“This is my first protest,” said Prather, who is going to Washington on the Plymouth bus. “There are people who would like to be there who are too poor, too frightened or too marginalized to be there, and so I would like to lend a voice to them.”

Prather does not like Trump — she thinks he’s “unqualified” for the office — but protesting him is not her motivation. She gave that a lot of thought before signing up, and she wants to promote kindness, in particular for the future for her three young grandchildren.

“I want them to grow up in a world where people are kind to each other,” she said. “I want them to know that’s not the way you treat anybody who’s different than you.”

Barbara Alane Kerr

Kerr, distinguished professor of counseling psychology at the University of Kansas, is flying to Washington, where she said she plans to take care of National Science Foundation business on Friday and to march on Saturday.

But shortly after the election Kerr started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for others to join her, specifically artists and other creative people from the Lawrence Creates Makerspace, which she co-founded.

“I was concerned at the very beginning when the march was announced that it was going to be a white woman’s march,” said Kerr, who is white. “I wanted creative people to be represented, and I wanted women of color to be represented.”

The $3,000 she raised in about three days is funding a van, hotel rooms, food and some all-weather gear for nine “makers,” who Kerr said are all women of color, to go to Washington.

“We’re not marching against Trump, we’re marching for the rights of women,” Kerr said, listing health care access, equal pay and safety in relationships among other examples. “It’s silly from my point of view to respond, ‘Well, we are against Trump.’ Being against something is not as powerful as saying what you’re for.”

Marylin Hinojosa

Marylin Hinojosa

Hinojosa, 27, is a Latina artist heading to Washington in the Makerspace van, a trip she said would have been “impossible” for her to afford on her own. After they return from Washington, she and her fellow marching “makers” plan to put together an exhibit inspired by their experience.

Hinojosa said the election cycle preceding Trump’s inauguration was “hurtful,” but also energized her.

“I never voted before this year. I never felt like it was important for a person like me to vote — it was like one not-so-great choice over another,” Hinojosa said. “His hate speech and rhetoric and all this negativity that he’s bringing out, it’s made me feel that I’ve been targeted, specifically as a woman and a person who is Mexican-American. I feel like it is very personal at this point.”

Hinojosa said she wants to represent “brown people” in Washington.

“I want to say that I’m part of this community, I’m part of this country, I’m part of the history now,” she said.

Sheyda Jahanbani

Jahanbani, an associate professor of history at KU, is going to the Topeka march with her 3-year-old daughter and her 67-year-old mother. She’s participating for feminism and against misogyny, which she said was conveyed in statements by Trump.

“In my lifetime there has not really been a galvanizing moment for feminist solidarity … I want to be part of building a new feminism for the future,” said Jahanbani, 40. “I want to make sure to go on record with my own body, in a sense, to being deeply opposed to anything that celebrates misogyny.”

In Topeka, Jahanbani hopes to ensure lawmakers whose decisions directly affect her life see her, along with other marchers.

“What’s happening in Washington, things that the president-elect has said and the things that by implication many Republicans have endorsed, physically standing up to that on Saturday is why I want to do this,” she said. “This is what believing in equal rights for all looks like.”

Megan Brokaw

Brokaw, 31, said she needed a positive, constructive way to channel her frustration after the election.

Megan Brokaw

“I feel very deeply that being a part of this movement was not only for me personally, but for those who fought for my rights before me and for those who will come after me,” she said. “I also feel that as a straight, white woman I have a responsibility to stand up for those who are most vulnerable and most at-risk in the current climate.”

With the Washington march and through local meetings after it, Brokaw hopes to bring together what she called various fractured movements.

“We want to move forward as a united group and let our legislators know that we are here,” she said. “We hope to continue this work and help bring about cultural changes that are necessary to preserve and uphold the rights of all Americans.”

Eleanor McCormick

Rev. Eleanor McCormick

“This is very much a personal, a professional, a faith walk — march — for me,” McCormick said. “I can’t think of anything more important to be doing with my time and ministry right now.”

As a pastor in the United Church of Christ, McCormick, 33, said she was troubled by election rhetoric and felt compelled to go to Washington to publicly stand with “those that have been demonized or threatened.” She said that includes women, immigrants such as her German-citizen husband and people from diverse religious faiths.

“For myself, I would like to see in the spirit of democracy our elected leaders voicing their concern for human rights, their concern for human dignity and their commitment to a justice that respects all of our neighbors as ourselves,” she said.


Area marches

“Sister Marches” to the Women’s March on Washington are planned Saturday in Topeka and Kansas City, Mo.

The Topeka march is set for 1 p.m. at the Kansas Statehouse, 300 SW 10th Ave. The Kansas City march is set for 1 p.m. at Washington Square Park, Pershing Road and Grand Boulevard.

The Women’s March on Washington website, womensmarch.com, has a complete list of Sister Marches.

The Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity at the University of Kansas has chartered a bus to the Topeka march, which is free for KU community members. As of Thursday afternoon, two seats remained on the 46-seat bus. To RSVP, email emilytaylorcenter@ku.edu.