Linda A. Moore

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

Embracing the spirit of celebration and determination, an estimated 6,000-plus marchers chanted their way through Downtown Memphis Saturday as numbers for the Memphis Women’s March far exceeded expectations, like many of the other 600 sister marches to the Women’s March on Washington.

Many in in the crowd waved to onlookers as some of the spectators recorded the march on cellphones or leaned out apartment windows in a show of support. The march began at the Judge D’Army Bailey Court House, named for the local civil rights icon, to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

The marchers were women and men of all ages, members of many races, representing various religions and sexual orientations. Jubilant in the sunshine of an unseasonably warm winter day, they carried signs, chanted slogans, played drums and rattled tambourines.

They walked dogs, pushed babies in strollers and pulled kids in wagons. Some marchers used canes or rode in scooters.

The march was not billed as a protest against President Donald Trump, but an affirmation and a call to action in the ongoing fight for women’s rights and human rights.

“Stand back there and look at that and it’s Memphis,” said marcher Darcy Locke, 43, of Memphis. “How many times do you look at Memphis and it’s so divided and for once everybody is coming together for something And it’s nice to see. There are so many different kinds of people here and they’re here for the same reason. It’s not just about Trump or women’s rights or abortion or anything. It’s the right to be.”

“I love it. This is awesome,” said Nikki Shaw, 36, of Horn Lake, Mississippi, who saw the march and stopped her car to watch with her mother, Evelyn Shaw and 11-year-old daughter, Ari Shaw.

“My daughter is biracial. And I wanted her to see that, as blacks and whites, we’re coming together,” Nikki Shaw said.

“I think this is a good thing to show people that we can all come together,” said Ari Shaw.

Many marchers in Memphis and across the country wore specially made pink knit "kitty-cat hats,” symbolic of Trump's boast before the election that he grabbed women by the genitals.

Before the march, on the steps of the courthouse named for her late husband, Adrienne Bailey, a past chief executive officer of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mid-South, told the throng that her husband would be proud.

"He dedicated his life to social justice and civil rights," Bailey said. "He loves seeing you here today because his spirit is with us. You are continuing the fight, continuing the struggle."

So many have sacrificed their lives for social justice and social change, she said. "We're being called again to rise up," she said.

"We know those two people that recited the oath yesterday, we know who they are, they have exposed themselves to us," Bailey said, of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

"Who are we?" she said.

"We are women," the crowded shouted back.

Bailey was proceeded by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who skipped Trump's inauguration Friday.

"This is the most serious threat to the Constitution ever in our lifetimes," Cohen said. "A threat to the environment, a threat to world peace, a threat to women's rights, a threat to the rights of everyone."

Once the march reached the the museum, president Terri Lee Freeman continued to hammer home that the mile-plus walk was only symbolic and that the real work has just begun.

The fight against Jim Crow segregation laws was not a movement of Africa-Americans alone, but had "accomplices" of various races and ethnicities who had "a stake in the game and a dog in the fight," Freeman said.

"We need those who believe that equity is a real issue, those who want a community that is inclusive, that embraces the complexity and richness of diversity, to join those who are directly effected by injustice, prejudice and a lack of opportunity every day of their lives, to state no more," Freeman said.

After the event, the grassroots group of organizers were amazed at the number of people who participated.

“When we first started planning this, we were going to be excited to get 300 people to attend,” said Natalie Worlow, march director and organizing manager. “We were prepared for counter protesters, hecklers and I haven’t heard anything. I didn’t see anything. People were just in a positive mood. I saw lots of families. People were smiling and having fun.”

And they left the march “fired up,” Worlow said.

“This was just the jumping off point. This is not the end game. Our goal was to build connections and I think this was a good way to do that. It was a good beginning and now the real work begins,” she said. “We’re going to relish in this for about a day, take a break and then get back to work.”

Community Call for Justice and Protection

SisterReach, Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region, Black Lives Matter, Memphis Fight for $15, Open Heart Spiritual Center and other community supporters will address harmful policies they believe will put poor communities at risk under President Donald Trump's administration at 8 a.m. Monday at the Vasco A. Smith Jr. County Administration Building, 160 N. Main.