[29][30] The crowds were peaceful: no arrests were made in D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles,[b] New York City, or Seattle, where a combined total of about two million people marched.

[34][35] On November 9, 2016, the first day after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States,[36] in reaction to Trump's election campaign and history of sexism towards women,[c][38] and to his defeat of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Facebook pages created by Evvie Harmon, Fontaine Pearson, Bob Bland (a New York fashion designer), Breanne Butler, and others quickly led to thousands of women signing up to march.

[39][40][41][42] Harmon, Pearson, and Butler decided to unite their efforts and consolidate their pages, beginning the official Women's March on Washington.

[45][46] During "the first hours of the first meeting for what would become the Women's March", Mallory and Perez allegedly put forward a debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory regarding Jews and the slave trade.

Mallory and Bland deny that the offensive content in the conversation took place, but, according to Tablet Magazine, "multiple sources with knowledge of what happened confirmed the story.

Sarsour called it "a stand on social justice and human rights issues ranging from race, ethnicity, gender, religion, immigration and healthcare".

[56] Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said that the march would "send a strong message to the incoming administration that millions of people across this country are prepared to fight attacks on reproductive healthcare, abortion services and access to Planned Parenthood, [which] hopes that [in the future] many of the protesters will mobilize in its defense when Trump and congressional Republicans make their attempt to strip the organization of millions in federal funding".

[6] Vanessa Wruble, co-founder, brought on Tamika D. Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour to serve as National Co-Chairs alongside Bob Bland.

[45][72] The rally also paid tribute to the 1997 Million Woman March in Philadelphia, in which hundreds of thousands of African American women are said to have participated.

[73] Because of scheduling conflicts at the Lincoln Memorial,[74] a permit was secured on December 9 to start the march on Independence Avenue at the southwest corner of the Capitol building and continue along the National Mall.

[83] Other organizations listed as partners included the AFL–CIO, Amnesty International USA, the Mothers of the Movement, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Organization for Women, MoveOn.org, Human Rights Watch, Code Pink, Black Girls Rock!, the NAACP, the American Indian Movement, Emily's List, Oxfam, Greenpeace USA, and the League of Women Voters.

[88] Other anti-abortion groups that had been granted partnership status, including Abby Johnson's And Then There Were None (ATTWN) and Stanton Healthcare, were subsequently unlisted as partners as well.

[90] However, The Washington Post and The New York Times have stated that it is difficult to accurately calculate crowd size[94][95] and other estimates of the Trump inauguration range from 250,000 to 600,000 people.

Other speakers were Sophie Cruz, Angela Davis, and Michael Moore, as well as Cecile Richards, Ilyasah Shabazz, Janet Mock, LaDonna Harris, Janelle Monáe, Maryum Ali, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sister Simone Campbell, Ashley Judd, Melissa Harris-Perry, Randi Weingarten, Van Jones, Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Roslyn Brock, Mayor Muriel Bowser, Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Kamala Harris (D-CA), Donna Hylton, Ai-jen Poo, and Raquel Willis.

"[6] Ferrera stated, "If we – the millions of Americans who believe in common decency, in the greater good, in justice for all – if we fall into the trap by separating ourselves by our causes and our labels, then we will weaken our fight and we will lose.

Senator Cory Booker, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson attended the Washington march.

[109][110][111] Anne-Marie Slaughter, president of New America and former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department, attended the New York City march.

[114] Both Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey participated in the Boston Women's March,[115] along with Mayor Marty Walsh.

[148] In response to this call, crafters all over the United States began making these hats using patterns provided on the project website for use with either a knitting method, crocheting and even sewing with fabrics.

[150] The hats are made using pink yarns or fabrics and were originally designed to be a positive form of protest for Trump's inauguration by Krista Suh.

"[150] Suh and Zwieman worked with Kat Coyle, the owner of a local knitting supply shop called The Little Knittery, to come up with the original design.

[162] In Los Angeles, actor Amir Talai was carrying the sign "I'll see you nice white ladies at the next #blacklivesmatter march right?"

to express frustration at the lack of participation by white Americans in the Black Lives Matter movement, and simultaneously hopeful of encouraging them to do so.

A spokesperson for the National Archives explained that the censorship was designed to avoid politicizing the event and to protect children and young people who might see the signs.

And the question is, at the march, what kind of organizational structures or movements will also be present to help people know how to channel their energy for the next day and for the long haul?".

[168] Maine Representative Chellie Pingree said she would instead visit a Planned Parenthood center and a business owned by immigrants on Inauguration Day before going to Washington to appear on stage with other politicians who refused to attend.

"[173][174] Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, offered her support on Twitter, calling the march "awe-inspiring" and stated, "[I] hope it brought joy to others as it did to me.

[176] John Carman, a Republican official in South Jersey mocked the Women's March, asking if the protest would "be over in time for them to cook dinner".

[177] The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, had planned to give their human rights award to the 2017 Women's March.

[189] In July 2017, the Women's March official Twitter feed celebrated the birthday of Assata Shakur, an African-American on the FBI most wanted terrorists list who was convicted of murder, leading to criticism from conservative media outlets.