(EARLIER COVERAGE: Our photos of West Seattleites heading to the march)

(Gatewood pilot/photographer Long Bach Nguyen‘s aerial view of much of the crowd at the march’s starting point)

6:13 PM: With more than 100,000 participants, the Womxn’s March on Seattle lasted more than four and a half hours – from the first departures from Judkins Park around 11:15, to the Seattle Police announcement that the last marchers had arrived at Seattle Center around 3:50 pm, without incidents or arrests.

(Texted photo)

We covered marchers leaving West Seattle this morning (see those photos here); we appreciate everyone who has sent photos (editor@westseattleblog.com or 206-293-6302) and expect to add more.

Above and below, Trissa Hodapp sent photos of her group, all West Seattleites, from the end of the route at Seattle Center.

Trissa says, “My daughter carried the sign almost the entire route. It was so powerful and had positive energy.” The signs told the story of the day – this next one was photographed by Samuella Samaniego:

She also sent this view from the Chinatown area:

Carl Guess shared the photo below, observing, “Love the juxtaposition of the gospel tune lyric and the flag.”

The sign shown with this group of “walking West Seattleites” was from the school of “cup half full”:

Some signs were handwritten:

Texted photo

And in many views – what stood out was the prevalence of the pink “pussyhats”:

Many family groups – next are Stephanie and Madeline Gerding, photographed by Patrick Gerding:

The next two are from Y-Ma, who e-mailed: “We got to Judkins around 10:30. The crowd, the energy & respectfulness was kind of overwhelming. I think it took us about 90 minutes after start to actually be able to leave the park vicinity. Coming down the hill – it was an absolute sea of people for as far as one could see.”

That sea of people rolled and strolled on through the Central and International Districts, and on to downtown – this view is from Sarah Cameron:

And this, from Laura Dedon Oxford:

Next photo, via e-mail – “Denise Nelson and Lisa Stencel representing West Seattle!”

And here are students from a school that marched on Friday too – Taproot School:

Thanks to Lynne Meddaugh for that photo.

So what happened at the end of the march route? Barbara Dobkin sent this photo of performers on the Seattle Center grounds:

ADDED 9:40 PM: More photos sent since we published the ones above – thank you, again! Citywide media now quotes organizers as estimating about 175,000 people participated. The next three pictures are from West Seattle photographer Vy Duong:

Anna Yates took her daughters, Genesee Hill Elementary students, and shared this photo:

Another mom who took her child – Panayiota Bertzikis, who we found out belatedly is a West Seattle resident and was also among today’s speakers! She shared this photo of herself and her one-year-old, who joined her onstage:

From J. Lardizabal, more West Seattleites representing at the march:

Thanks to Layne Ahlstrom for the next three photos:

And Alki artist Susan K. Miller is the only person to send a sketch! “Reporting the old-fashioned way! 😊 This was Judkins Park at 9:15a, when you could still see some grass. Focused on that ERA NOW sign, exactly like the one I marched with 40 years ago because as several signs said, ‘Can’t believe we’re still protesting this’.”

ADDED SUNDAY MORNING: More photos came in overnight – the next two are from Karen Berge, featuring a two-sided sign created by one of the West Seattleites with whom she marched, Mary Sheely (seen in second photo):

Kathryn Aupperlee sent photos of signs that caught her attention, including these:

ADDED SUNDAY EVENING: A few more photos have come in – these are from The Lees:

“We’re a local WS family from the Puget Ridge area. We took the bus route #125 in front of SSC to downtown but since the buses were full from DT to the park by the time we arrived at the SAM, we just walked up to the park. I pushed both my kids in the stroller from there to Judkins Park. I didn’t have a pink hat so I hair sprayed my hair pink. My daughter is a kindergartener at Sanislo Elementary. I am on the PTA board.”

And from Aneelah Afzali, the West Seattleite about whom we wrote on the eve of the march, for which she was a pre-march speaker:

This was one of ~400 marches – photos seen on Twitter even included one in Antarctica.

This morning, we heard from Tom, whose family had decided not to go to the Womxn’s March on Seattle but wanted to invite others to join a small “solidarity march” around The Junction. We caught up with his group as they headed out from California/Edmunds around quarter till 1, after the sun had emerged from the clouds.

As for the main march downtown – per SPD, after more than two hours, the last of the marchers have finally left Judkins Park, as the front of the group arrived at the end of the route more than 3 miles away. The crowd has been estimated at well over 100,000. No incidents reported along the way, we can say from monitoring police frequencies and other emergency channels. We’ll have an update later with photos from participants (got a photo to share? editor@westseattleblog.com or text 206-293-6302 – thank you!).

(WSB photos by Tracy Record and Patrick Sand unless otherwise credited)

10:42 AM: After receiving a photo from the bus-chartering moms in Gatewood (shown atop our daily-preview list), we decided to head to The Junction to check out people catching buses to head to the march starting point in the Central District. And we found lots of them, of all ages!

The buses were jammed – even with Metro adding more, in the 9 am hour, they were leaving full, with some having to wait for the next one. This photo was texted from aboard a Route 21 bus caught along Avalon:

(WSB reader photo)

As we headed back south to WSB headquarters on the Gatewood/Upper Fauntleroy line, we saw an obviously march-bound group waiting at Westside Unitarian Universalist Congregation, so we pulled over for this photo:

They told us they were awaiting rideshare vehicles – and that the group was twice this size but the others had already left.

IF YOU’RE MARCHING: Please send a photo – we will have a separate report later with photos from the march. editor@westseattleblog.com or text to 206-293-6302 (our 24/7 round-the-clock number) – thank you!

IF YOU’RE NOT MARCHING: As added to our daily preview list, a local family is organizing a small solidarity march around The Junction – meet at Uptown Espresso (California/Edmunds/Erskine) at 12:30 pm.

ABOUT THE HATS: If you don’t know the background of the pink hats many are wearing … go here.

11:30 AM: As of a minutes ago, the march is officially on the move, having left Judkins Park (and all the overflow spots where people are waiting along the route to Seattle Center). If you are headed downtown for some other reason – keep in mind that traffic/access will be affected for hours. TV helicopters are over the crowd; this is the most reliable feed we’ve found so far.

12:28 PM: After more than an hour, SPD says the march has now spread almost entirely across the full official route of more than 3 miles – as the front of the march approaches the end of the route at Seattle Center, some have yet to leave Judkins Park at the start of the route.

2:45 PM: The march is in its fourth hour and some are still on the route to Seattle Center – just passing Spring Street, according to the latest police-radio update, plus SPD via Twitter:

All the estimates we’ve seen so far have participation at more than 100,000 people. Again, we’ll have a separate report later with the photos we’ve received (thank you!) and summary details.

3:04 PM: Some buses are still on reroutes – be aware of this if you’re trying to get home. For the C Line, we checked with Metro: “The C Line has been rerouted further west on Mercer to Queen Anne Ave. It is traveling south on QA to turn left on Denny Way, then right on 1st, left on Broad and right onto 3rd Ave.” We don’t know how much longer this will last, though.

3:29 PM: Metro also now has a free shuttle running “on 5th Ave between Mercer and Broad Streets” to go south back into downtown from Seattle Center to catch buses back this way.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

If you are going to the Womxn’s March on Seattle tomorrow, get to the starting point at Judkins Park in time for the pre-march speakers.

One is a West Seattle neighbor – Aneelah Afzali.

Afzali is executive director of MAPS-AMEN, the recently launched American Muslim Empowerment Network, launched through the Muslim Association of Puget Sound, which is based in Redmond.

She will be one of five speakers at the rally before the march, and her speech will be about combating Islamophobia. “Essentially,” she told us during a phone conversation, “getting people to understand that Muslims were part of America even before it was a country, despite the demonization we are seeing in the media.” She’ll be talking about what people can do to help combat Islamophobia.

What CAN you do? “Each circumstance will vary,” Afzali says. The important thing is to not just stand by in silence – use your voice, use your body if you have to, or tell the story – if you see or hear something, posting about it on social media can be an important way of fighting back. “Standing up for the victim, letting them know they have an ally … there are a variety of things that people can do.”

In the bigger picture, her work “has four areas of focus – coalition building … with other minority groups as well as our friends and allies of any kind of background. That’s important during troubling times. (Also) education about Islam and Muslims – unfortunately, most people in our country don’t know Muslims, and something is easy to demonize when you don’t know much about it.” Another area of focus: “Leveraging media properly – Islam is the most mentioned religion (in media),” but most of the mentions are negative, Afzali says. The final focus: “Youth empowerment – helping build the future leaders of our country.” Last weekend, MAPS-AMEN had a youth-advocacy workshop with more than 100 young participants learning about Islamophobia and using the “power of the pen” to combat it.

MAPS-AMEN plans to have more than 100 American Muslims marching tomorrow; an announcement of that is how we found Afzali – we received a news release about the group’s participation, and asked if there were any West Seattleites with whom we could speak.

ABOUT THE MARCH: Marchers are gathering at 10 am at Judkins Park, with the speakers (including Aneelah Afzali) scheduled at 10:30 am, marching instructions at 11. Full details, including maps, are here.

Inaugural Parade today, Women’s March tomorrow. Big weekend in D.C., and some West Seattleites have traveled from here to “the other Washington.” The photo was just sent by one of them, Kerry Murphy:

We (the 3 on the left: Kristen Meyer, Kerry Murphy, Megan Jasper) were standing at the inaugural parade (in our pussyhats) today, feeling a little overwhelmed, and a woman and her teenage daughter (Tessa Surface and Kristina Dahl, in the pic) wandered up, also looking a hair overwhelmed. We started chatting, and it turns out we all are from West Seattle. Small world! I had 4 West Seattleites on my plane yesterday, too (that I know of – maybe more?).

We’ll appreciate photos tomorrow too – editor@westseattleblog.com – thank you!