Photos by Billy Bennight for The Los Angeles Beat
I met up with Kat Kramer for the Women’s March here in Los Angeles to be a part of something important after the fallout of the November 8th election. While I waited for Kat to arrive I was amazed by the sheer numbers of people arriving at 7th Street and Olive on their way to Pershing Square. Once we met up we walked to Pershing Square. It had become so densely packed that we had to seek a less direct route to make it to the Square. We had hoped to walk to City Hall as we squeezed through the crowd, until we became locked together by all the bodies so tightly packed together at 5th and Hill. We stood there suspended for a least a half hour before we decided to navigate down Broadway, rather than Hill. We enjoyed some rousing speeches, encouraging everyone in attendance to persist in hope of our ideals for equity and civil rights in all it’s various forms that are going to suffer under our current administration using activism and civil disobedience to advance our freedoms: which includes LBGTQ rights, women’s rights, minority rights and freedom of speech.
Photo Gallery After The Break
It was an unprecedented experience, attracting an amazingly large and devoted crowd that spanned 6th Street to City Hall. Upwards of 750,000 people voiced their freedom of speech. It was thrilling to see substantially more people attend than was expected, and all so vitally engaged with the ideals that have made America truly great! Kat and I made it to the entertainment stage at Broadway and 6th. There we saw Miley Cyrus, Anjelica Huston, Brandy, Rosanna Arquette, Laverne Cox, Rufus Wainwright, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Barbra Streisand. It was great to see a lot of friends on our travels and on every occasion we spent a little time celebrating seeing one another. It was a good day. I had other responsibilities, and so I left before the end of the day, but I was thoroughly impressed by the heroic efforts and willingness to surrender their time for civil liberties. Los Angeles represented in the nationwide, if not worldwide choir for liberty and free speech!
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- Photos by Billy Bennight for The Los Angeles Beat
