Trump's inauguration will be protested in all 50 states and 32 countries

WASHINGTON — From the grave of a suffragist in upstate New York to the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., and the Brandenburg Gate in Germany, President-elect Donald Trump has quite a welcome committee: An estimated 1 million people plan to demonstrate in all 50 states and 32 countries.

In the U.S. capital alone, the National Park Service has issued permits for 25 separate events the weekend of his Jan. 20 swearing-in as the nation's 45th president. It’s a number that’s “pretty well unprecedented” relative to past inaugurations, said Mike Litterst, a park service spokesman. “The biggest issue is merely finding space for all of these groups that allows for a meaningful demonstration,” he said.

The main event is the Women’s March on Washington, which will draw at least 200,000 individuals with concerns about threats to women's rights, including abortion, as well as affordable health care and equal pay. It has inspired about 300 others of varying sizes across the country and on every continent, according to Yordanos Eyoel, spokeswoman for the network of sister marches.

While there are a few groups — like Bikers for Trump — coming to show their support, the vast majority are protesters, according to a Park Service spreadsheet of permit applications. What’s unique is that “people who have never been politically active before are now mobilizing,” said Eyoel, a Boston-based organizer from Ethiopia who became a U.S. citizen last fall.

Cities with the largest number of registrants include Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Boston, Denver, and Minneapolis. There are marches even in smaller and non-coastal cities including Topeka, Nashville, and Des Moines. “The message here is women’s rights are human rights, and we are not taking a single step back,” said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, among the partner groups.

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Others are more openly hostile to the incoming president.

“We’re more than disappointed in Trump. We’re disgusted,” said Working Families Party senior advisor Valerie Ervin. “We learned about Donald Trump’s attitude toward women once and for all when he boasted about sexual assault,” she said. "Not just today but for years to come we will march and we will fight.”

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The hundreds of thousands of marchers descending on Washington belie their challenge in presenting a unified front: Trump was elected with plenty of support from women. “There are women who have always fought against and will continue to fight against systemic and patriarchal structures. This march, though, is taking place in a different context,” said Brandy Faulkner, a politics expert at Virginia Tech. “We have a president-elect who is on tape bragging about a sexual assault. Yet, roughly 54% of white women who voted supported him,” said Faulkner.

Even so, O’Neill hopes Trump will take notice of their passion since “a lot more people may be coming to our march than are coming to his inauguration,” she said. According to the D.C. Department of Transportation, as of Friday there were 393 charter buses registered for parking on the day of Trump’s inauguration, compared to the 1,200 registered the day of the women’s march.

The diverse groups participating — from Amnesty International to Planned Parenthood — see the marches as an orientation of sorts for a longer term resistance to the Trump agenda. Filmmaker and activist Michael Moore has called for “100 days of resistance” to Trump’s presidency that starts with the women’s march. The big test will be “whether the groups will pursue a collective policy agenda after the marching is done,” said Faulkner.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said 99 protest groups are expected for the inauguration, including 63 that are expected to protest on Jan. 20.

Forming alliances

Organizers are hoping participants will form alliances and inspire women to get more involved in their local communities, and according to O'Neill, civil rights and women’s rights groups have already begun closer coordination in the wake of Trump’s Nov. 8 victory.

A lot depends on people like Esther Lofgren, a 31-year-old Olympic gold medalist in rowing who hasn’t been an activist but now wants to advance women’s issues. “It seems like a very important time to speak up for human rights,” she said. “As an athlete, I know how important my body and what I choose to do with it is,” said Lofgren, who’ll march with her teammates as part of a group called Athlete Ally and who has just begun to consider which specific causes to adopt.

Among the groups that have sprouted in the aftermath of the election is Lawyers for Good Government, a new national organization of more than 120,000 lawyers and activists offering pro-bono work to defend civil and human rights that says it wants “to harness, empower and coordinate the unprecedented political energy that has emerged” since Trump’s election. A day after the march, EMILY’s List will hold a candidate training for about 500 women interested in running for office. The group will "undertake a major effort to recruit, train, and elect more pro-choice Democratic women to office nationwide,” it said in a statement. Public Citizen and others will host a “teach-in” to inform new activists how to “plug into grassroots campaigns and acquire skills to take home to their communities.”

Whenever there are large protests there’s potential for clashes. That's more likely to happen on inauguration day than it is during the women's march. "There’s a lot of baby strollers at women’s marches. It’s not a raucous march," said O'Neill.

'A wall of meat'

During the inauguration, a group called #DisruptJ20 is vowing a “festival of resistance” to include a march and rallies at all 12 Secret Service security checkpoints and “colorful disruptions” along the inaugural parade route to protest “racial justice, immigrant rights, LGBTQ, antiwar, climate” and other concerns. The group spent the weekend of Jan. 14 in a series of trainings and workshops. It may also attempt to disrupt inaugural balls attended by Trump supporters, including the “Deploraball.”

The main pro-Trump group organizing around the inauguration is Bikers for Trump, a motorcycle group led by a South Carolina chainsaw artist who mowed the lawn around the Lincoln Memorial during the 2013 government shutdown. On Thursday, the group posted on Twitter that Trump is “instructing his staff to give us the resources to put on the best rally possible.” Still, on Friday its founder, Chris Cox, told Fox Business Network “the bikers are certainly used to being outnumbered and we are prepared to form a wall of meat.”

There are so many groups planning to storm the streets of Washington that Mic created a realtime map for protesters and watchers called “Storm the Swamp” to help keep track of the planned chaos. Others include an estimated 500 who will hold a peaceful candlelight vigil commemorating women who stood vigil in front of the White House from 1913 to 1917 to advocate for suffrage during which the Seneca Falls Declaration will be read.

Finally, a pro-marijuana legalization group plans to hand out a few thousand free joints to raise awareness about the benefits of marijuana legalization. “At 4 minutes and 20 seconds into President Trump’s speech we’ll light up! (unless President Trump comes out now in support of full cannabis legalization in all 50 states and DC!)” DCMJ says on its homepage.

Stay with USA TODAY for full coverage of the 2017 inauguration.