The Women’s March has faced controversy and division. Will a rebrand be enough? | Donald Trump News

But the organization continued. In 2018, leaders of the Women’s March helped demonstrate against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh while he faced questions about sexual assault allegations.

Then, in 2020, they held a vigil for the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgwho was known for her work on gender equality.

And in 2022, when the Supreme Court eventually he flipped federal abortion rights, organizers of the Women’s March launched a “summer of rage,” with protests from coast to coast.

But the group also continued to face controversies about its membership.

In 2018, for example, a founding member claimed that she had been pushed out of her leadership role because of her Jewish faith. The outcry about anti-Semitism led other leaders to resign. Critics have also accused the group of abandoning people of color and whitewashed feminism.

In 2019, the movement saw a much smaller number than in its previous annual marks, leaving some attendees disappointed.

Since then, the organization has brought a new leadership as Tamika Middleton, its general director from 2021. She recognizes that the organization has had to evolve to keep up with the times.

“I think we’re still learning, and I think we’re still practicing, right?” she said. “Our values ​​have not always landed in our practice in the ways we intend.”

Middleton, who describes himself as part of “a radical black southern tradition”, told Al Jazeera that this year’s annual protest – dubbed the People’s March – would not try to recreate the mass momentum of 2017.

Instead, she hopes Tuesday’s People’s March will bring together a broader coalition of activists interested in advancing the rights of immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and the poor, as well as women.

“We recognize the connection between all these battles and that there is a threat, there is an opposition that is beyond Trump,” Middleton said.

The changing trends in the movement were exposed last November when the Women’s March helped organize an impromptu protest outside the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

It was the weekend after the 2024 election, and Middleton noticed a difference in the way protesters reacted to Trump’s most recent victory.

“When Trump was first elected, there was sort of this kind of outrage that grew really, really quickly,” he explained. “And this time what we saw, yes, we saw some outrage. We also saw frustration, we saw disappointment, we saw pain. We saw a lot of sadness.”

For Marie, the activist who attended the 2017 march in San Francisco, the last four years under Democratic President Joe Biden have also contributed to a change in public mood.

Under Biden, the The United States continued to provide unconditional military aid to its ally Israel — even as the Middle Eastern country waged a devastating 15-month war in Gaza, killing more than 46,800 Palestinians. UN experts they found Israel’s tactics in the enclave to be “consistent with genocide.”

Marie explained that she sees the recent events as part of a “legacy of violence” that extends beyond party lines.

“Trump is not the bogeyman,” Marie said. “This is a nation that prioritizes bombs, and specifically bombs children over education.”

Political change, he added, requires more sustained activism than a single annual protest can provide.

“The action needed to change the government is not a couple of hours on a Saturday with a couple of signs,” said Marie. “We have left the domain of cute protest.”