On January 21, about 40 people from Met Council joined 400,000 others on the streets of New York City for the Women’s March. A sea of anti-Trump insignia and pink cat-ear hats flooded down Second Avenue to 42nd Street before heading north towards the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and 56th Street. The crowd was so large and congested that the seemingly short walk took several hours.
“We marched because Met Council was founded by women and is led by women. Since our founding, we have been fighting sexist and racist landlords,” said program coordinator Andrea Shapiro. “Now we face a landlord-in-chief. We are committed to fighting not just for tenants’ rights, but the rights of all those who are oppressed and threatened by this administration.”
“I marched because I believe that we will need the power of community to resist the new administration,” said Marci Soifer of Brooklyn.
“I was not only marching for myself, but for my family members that could not be there,” said Paul Navarro of Queens. “Also, as a first-generation Latino, it was also important for me to voice my discontent with [Trump’s] inflammatory remarks and how he has used anti-immigrant rhetoric to push his way into the White House.”
For Met Council volunteer Angela Pham, the march “spoke to how core tenants’ rights are to a movement like this, where we protest to protect people from being deprived of basic human rights.” Several times, she said, bystanders and other marchers told her, ‘Met Council! You do great work!’ or ‘You guys helped me 15 years ago.’”