WE NEED A CONTEXT GRAPH IN HERE THAT EXPLAINS THE REASON FOR THE UPSET. FOR EXAMPLE, THE HATE CRIME STATS SINCE THE ELECTION ARE FUEL FOR THE GROWING INTEREST> AND I THINK WE REPORTED THE MICHIGAN WAS NO.1 FOR HATE CRIME INCIDENTS SINCE THE ELECTION>

It was the Facebook post read around the w World w Wide w Web.

A Hawaiian grandmother, distraught about the results of the presidential election in November, typed the words: “We should march.”

►Related: What to know if you'd like to go to the march in D.C.

The post was shared on the pro-Hillary Clinton Facebook page Pantsuit Nation, and women responded in droves.

Within days, a march on Washington was planned. Organizers estimate hundreds of thousands of women will descend on Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, the first day of President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, to speak as one voice for fairness, equality, and inclusion not only for women, but for all marginalized members of society.

Buses packed with supporters are set to leave from Traverse City, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Detroit and Marquette that weekend, shuttling women like Marion Christiansen of White Lake and Karin Risko cq-karin of Lincoln Park to Washington.

“I’m extremely disappointed in the outcome of this election,” said Christiansen, 54. “This is a matter of decency vs. Trump. There isn’t any decency in him. What he said about women, about the disabled. Even Gold Star parents, he insulted them. Yet people still put him in office. That’s why I’m going. … We’re going down to Washington, and we’re going to make our voices heard. Enough with this war on women, this war on minorities, the war on religion.”

Both Christiansen and Risko have backgrounds in tour and travel planning. Before the election, the pair had chartered a bus to go to Washington, D.C., for Hillary Clinton’s inauguration.

“When the election results came in, the very next day, I said OK, let’s cancel the trip,” Risko said. But soon after that, “Marion e-mailed me because, all of a sudden, there were all these frustrated voters … and a group started this march on Washington.”

Phoebe Hopps is the Michigan coordinator for the Women’s March on Washington. As of Monday, about 2,900 people from Michigan had pledged on its Facebook page that they are going. Another 7,200 from Michigan had indicated they were interested in going.

“Of those, I would say about a quarter of people are either flying or driving on their own," said Hopps, who hosted a meeting of organizers Monday at Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Co. in Midtown Detroit. "About 75% are taking rally buses or charters and group buses. Every day, I find out about a new bus, from cities that I’ve never heard about."

Some women from very rural parts of the U.P. are carpooling to bus pick-up locations in bigger cities.

“It’s pretty cool to see people helping other people … to get to the march,” Hopps said.

Sign-making parties will be held across the state Jan. 8, and Hopps is urging anyone who attends from Michigan to put a blue mitten on their signs so people can identify one another from the Great Lakes State.

Akilah Russell of Detroit, a 23-year-old student at Western Michigan University, saw the Facebook page and got involved. She is going to the march, but also is working to help others get there.

"I’m trying to organize a bus out of Detroit," she said. "Really, what we’re doing is ... finding ways to make it more accessible to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to go.

"So much of what (President-elect Trump) said seemed flat-out wrong to me, but it also scared me. … I firmly believe that the personal informs the political. And so when he is in the political realm spewing all sorts of just awful, awful things, he has to know that he is affecting people’s very personal lives. I don’t think that anything we do will get him to step down or you know, anything super-drastic like that. But I do want him to know he will be held accountable for what he has said thus far, everything he will say and by the company he keeps."

Trump campaigned on promises to build a wall between the U.S. nited States and Mexico, to create a registry of refugees and enhance surveillance of Muslims living in America. Following leaked video footage of him talking with reporter Billy Bush about kissing and groping women, walking up to women and grabbing by the genitals, a slew of women came forward alleging he made unwanted sexual advances on them. Though he says he is not racist, some saw him as he was slow to disavow the white supremacists who campaigned for him.

Since the election, there's been a rise in the number of hate crimes reported across the U.S. nited States. Michigan had the highest number of hate incidents among states in the Midwest in the 10 days following the Nov. 8 election, according to a late November report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Lalitha Ramaswamy, a 20-year-old senior at the University of Michigan who grew up in Ann Arbor as a first-generation American whose parents were born in India, said the outcome of the presidential election left her and many other students feeling helpless.

"I got so many calls, e-mails and texts from friends around campus who were not just upset about the outcome of the election, but they were genuinely feeling afraid for what would happen to their families, what’s going to happen to their women’s health care that they had, a lot of their rights, and things that are fundamental to the way that they lived were being affected," Ramaswamy said.

"I had never seen so many of my close friends who were affected on a deeply personal level about something like this. ...I felt helpless. I could be there to hear someone and to emotionally support someone, but I couldn’t take any tangible action, and that really frustrated me."

So she and a friend, Florence Rivkin, began organizing buses to take students from Ann Arbor to Washington and back for the march. They've filled two buses so far, but have two more buses reserved in case there's additional demand.

"We're asking the next administration and those who come into power in D.C. in the next four years to pay attention and to give voice to minorities and women who have been pushed aside in this past election. That to me, makes me feel like I'm taking action," Ramaswamy said.

"I think a lot of people confuse this march with an anti-Trump protest. I just want to stress that it is absolutely not that. It’s a march and a movement asking for support and protection of marginalized all different communities everywhere. Regardless of your political leanings, you can show up for this march. ... It's all positive and unifying sentiments and feelings that are there," she said.

Norman Scott, 74, of Detroit said he was inspired to get involved after hearing women talking at a party about their own experiences of sexual harassment and assault in the weeks after the election.

"The women were sitting together and they were talking and one by one, they stood up, and they were saying, 'This happened to me. And this happened to me.'

"It was horrible. This stuff has been suppressed and it's coming out now. It's like this election has opened the door."

Scott and his wife, Annie Scott, have already reserved a hotel room and rented a car for the march.

"I'm going down to support these women," he said. DO WE KNOW WHAT HE DID WHEN HE WAS WORKING?

"I think a lot of people confuse this march with an anti-Turmp protest. I just want to stress that it is absolutly not that. It’s a march and a movement asking for support and protection of marginalized all different communities everywhere. Regardless of your political leanings, you can show up for this march. ... It's all positive and unifying sentiments and feelings that are there."

Ensuring there is diversity among the people marching is important, said Lidi Armenta, 32, who works in Detroit for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She is using her Spanish-speaking skills to help communicate details of the march with the state's Latino community.

"We’ll be evaluating to see how we can continue to match participation on demographics," Armenta said. "I think it’s important because women’s experiences are not necessarily the same, and sometimes the loudest voices tend to get their needs brought to the forefront.

"The more voices, the better. I think it worked when people marched on Washington 50-plus + years ago, and I think bringing up that image in people’s minds today might help make that connection and show that it’s not just your everyday social activist. This is a mom with children who stays at home. It’s a woman who works an 80-hour work week. It’s every woman now. Every woman wants and needs to get involved in this to make their voice heard."

Contact Kristen Jordan Shamus: 313-222-5997 or kshamus@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kristenshamus.