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More than 150 North Country residents to travel to Washington D.C. for Women’s March on Washington

Posted 1/18/17

By ANDY GARDNER CANTON -- More than 150 locals will travel to Washington, D.C. for the Women’s March on Washington, which is being organized in response to Donald Trump’s election. Three …

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More than 150 North Country residents to travel to Washington D.C. for Women’s March on Washington

Posted

By ANDY GARDNER

CANTON -- More than 150 locals will travel to Washington, D.C. for the Women’s March on Washington, which is being organized in response to Donald Trump’s election.

Three 56-passenger buses and what an event organizer describes as a “caravan” of others will leave Canton on Friday, inauguration day, and travel to Bethesda, Md.

“It’s a response to the election and new administration. I think people feel women are being marginalized … people and minorities are being challenged. We want the new administration to see we’re here,” said Carol Pynchon, who is helping organize the Canton group as a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church Social Action Committee.

Trump has been heavily criticized as being misogynistic. Some of his controversial comments come through his preferred social medium, Twitter, where he wrote among other things “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” Trump was also quoted in the New York Times on March 30, 2016 as saying women who seek abortions should be subjected to “some form of punishment.” That story is at goo.gl/F8zXQZ. He later recanted the statement. The president-elect also drew public outcry after the release of a 2005 recording where he bragged to then-Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about committing sexual assault. The Washington Post reported on that story at goo.gl/GAvsxV.

“It’s the same thing anybody feels when a new administration comes in … we will fight for fairness, justice and respect,” Pynchon said.

She said there has been a tremendous interest in participating in the event, which is expected to draw demonstrators from around the country.

“We have people who have been on the waiting list for months,” she said. “People who are not able to get on the buses are not staying home. They’re carpooling, caravanning.”

One of the three buses is entirely St. Lawrence University students, who paid for it themselves. The other two are sponsored by the UU Church’s Social Action Committee.

“It has been an amazing cooperative effort pulling this together. There’s a planning team. The people who signed up have been responsive, cooperative and patient,” Pynchon said. “There’s a lot that’s not known yet, such as exactly where we’ll be marching … people are being flexible and patient It’s been a nice community process.”

Pynchon is also a Democratic Canton village trustee, but she says she is not participating to represent the village.

“I am participating as a citizen and not an elected official for Canton,” she said. “I’m marching because I’m a mother and a woman and a concerned citizen, not representing anyone in Canton.”

More information about the event is at https://www.womensmarch.com/.