It’s possible that Saturday was the single largest day of protest ever in the United States, with march after march across the country exceeding all expectations. The fact that the marches were so organic, with organizers scrambling to keep up with popular demand rather than working to mobilize people to show up, was one of the beautiful things about Saturday, but it’s also a challenge. How many of those millions of people will stay active? How can organizers ensure that this is a moment of movement-building and not of collective venting that leaves participants thinking they’ve done their part and can relax now?
Donald Trump and the Republican Congress may be the best organizers of all, but march organizers and progressive groups are ready to do their part:
Within minutes after the march in Washington ended at sundown on Saturday, its leaders convened a four-hour pep rally and networking session called “Where Do We Go From Here?” On Sunday, Planned Parenthood held a training session for 2,000 organizers on turning mobilization into political action, with health care atop its priority list. David Brock, the Democratic activist, assembled a group of about 120 leading liberal donors in Aventura, Fla., to hear plans for lawsuits and other challenges to Mr. Trump. [...]
Todd Gitlin, a former president of Students for a Democratic Society and a scholar of political movements, noted that the civil rights and antiwar movements succeeded because of the organized networks that preceded and followed any single mass protest. “The march on Washington in 1963 was the culmination of years of local activism, including civil disobedience, registering voters, protecting civil rights workers and voter education movements,” he said. “Organizations need to be ready to receive the protesters when they’re ready to take the next step. You need to be a full-service movement.”
That effort, the organizers say, is already underway. At the panel Saturday night, representatives from the partner groups made 90-second pitches to the marchers, urging them to sign up for any of the organizations that appealed to them. The key, Ms. Poo said, was to build a continuous relationship with voters and volunteers so that they are not only approached before elections.
Elections are important. (So important!) But they’re not the only thing. We have at least two years during which we need to fight tooth and nail to keep Republicans from completely shredding the safety net, redistributing wealth upward, and gutting President Obama’s legacy. We need people showing up to hold their Republican representatives accountable. People flooding lawmakers’ offices with calls over bad legislation—and not just federal officeholders, but state and local ones, too. Voter registration drives. Union and other worker organizing. Signature collecting and door-knocking for the next round of progressive ballot measures, from minimum wage to paid leave to taxing the rich.
On Saturday, the people overwhelmed the organization. Now organizers are scrambling to turn marchers into activists in an ongoing way. But if you marched, you can also organize yourself—choose a cause, choose a group, make sure that marching was just your first step and that we’re building power for the future.
