“I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore,” Helen Reddy famously sang back in 1972.
Saturday morning, on a sunny and pleasantly cool early autumn morning in the heart of Oak Park, 53 years after Reddy’s lyrics expressed more sentiment and hope than reality, genuinely assertive, full throated and full blooded femininity was on display in Scoville Park, along with lots of men, in numbers too big to ignore.
Masculinity didn’t so much take a backseat, as step aside as women took the wheel as some 4,000 people gathered at the latest No King’s rally to stand in protest against the policies and tactics of the Trump administration.
It wasn’t just Oak Park residents. Women came from River Forest, Forest Park, Elmwood Park, Chicago and elsewhere to be part of a protest that was both peaceful and forceful, civil but demanding.
“No Faux-king Way” read the poster held up by one woman.
“Look around… We’ve only just begun!!!” read the sign held up by another, smiling woman, who was clearly not referring to The Carpenters hit song.
“I love America,” read another woman’s poster. “I hate what’s happening to it.”
More than a few women said their concerns were not just for themselves, but for the generations after them.
Sisters Francesca and Christina Pignataro made their way to the rally up a side street after finding a parking spot several blocks from Scoville Park. Francesca, who called herself a “restaurateur’ (yes, she’s that Francesca) said they were thinking of future generations. “We’re seniors. We’re fighting for our children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews.”
It wasn’t their first rodeo, Christina said. Fighting to gain and maintain rights is in her DNA, she said, having taught for 30 years at Triton College.
“I’m a union member,” she said. “We started back in the first Trump administration, with the women’s marches. We’ve marched up in Door County.”
“We’ve protested since the Reagan administration,” she said adding that happened after a man dear to them died of AIDS.
The event officially began with Mary Nelson, of Forest Park, conducting “Raging Grannies & Friends.” a small local singing group composed of “women of a certain age.” They sang softly but clearly, calling out MAGA and ICE and calling the Trump administration to account.
They finished with “Now You’ve Pissed Off Grandma.”
Sandra Mazziffi, of Elmwood Park, was present with her young daughters. She wore a T-shirt that proclaimed, “Fight for those without your privilege,” and holding a poster that read, “Kings fall, People rise.”
“I’m here so my girls can see what a peaceful protest can be, and (that they have) a right to be,” she said.
Two Hispanic women stood off to the side of the “Peace Triumphant” monument in Scoville Park, holding posters at their sides. One woman, looking pensive, held a sign that read “Undocumented Hands Feed You!!” Her colleague, who wore a T-shirt that proclaimed, “We are All Dreamers,” held a sign that read in part, “No ketchup on our hot dogs. No ICE on our streets.”
Men, including numerous military veterans, weighed in. “Proud to be a veteran. Ashamed of our Congress,” read the handwritten sign of a bearded older man. “Democracy dies in silence,” another man’s sign read.
Some were unapologetically blunt. “Not a paid protester. I hate Trump for free,” read another man’s sign.
As she prepared to join the several thousand people leaving Scoville Park for the four-block march to Harlem Avenue, Nelson, the choir master, stopped to speak with a reporter and sum up the day as she saw it. It was, she said, “Loud, vibrant, diverse.”
Nelson said the way the event had unfolded was as welcome as the mid-autumn warmth and sunshine after the threat of rain. “We were going to sing one way or another,” she said.”
Nelson admitted to having wallowed a bit in despair and hopelessness in the months after Trump’s election.
“I was in a fetal position for a month or so,” she said. The first No Kings events in June were a tonic and a wakeup call.
“We’re so tired of how non-inclusive the United States has become,” she said.
Nelson said it’s taken a while, but the realization of just how far Trump intends to go in dismantling democracy has sunk in. And like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, millions of people have picked themselves up off the floor and stood to face the task at hand.
“I think everyday Americans have gotten the message loud and clear of the horrors Trump is up to,” Nelson said.” And we’re speaking loud and clear (that) this is not what Americans want.”
Nelson said she and her wife, Anne and another friend decided to establish their own local version of the Raging Grannies International, a group that is “out in the streets promoting peace, justice, social and economic equality through song and humor.”
She admitted to a renewed appreciation for democracy, despite its flaws. “We’ve complained about democracy for years,” she said, “but it sure beats a fascist dictatorship.”
Nelson acknowledged that public, outdoor protests may be fewer with the approach of winter, but said she looks forward to the spring, and has no plans to stand down or go silent in the face of the ongoing abuses to American democracy and Constitutional order.
It was quite clear that no one in Scoville Park on Saturday wanted to find themselves singing the lyrics of another popular 1970s song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni Mitchell’s mournful look back in regret at unchallenged social and political change.
“Don’t it always seem to go,” Mitchell sang, “that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.”
