Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across the US one year after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president.
Crowds gathered in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington on Saturday for the second Women’s March.
The multi-city mass rallies are being hailed as the start of a new era of female political activism.
Today’s demonstration is being held in coordination with rallies planned for the weekend in cities across the US and overseas to mark the first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration.
“People were pretty damn mad last year and they’re pretty damn mad this year,” said Tamika Mallory, co-president of the Women’s March board, Reuters reports.
Mallory said the rallies may take on a light-hearted or even celebratory tone at times, but added: “We also know that serious business has to happen.”
An estimated 5 million people marched on January 21 last year, making it one of the largest mass protests in US history.
Activists say Trump’s policies rolling back birth control and equal pay protections have propelled many women into activism for the first time.
A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the marches.
The rallies also come during what has been seen as a pivotal year for women’s rights with the #MeToo and #TimesUp social media effort against sexual harassment and abuse that was born out of a string of scandals in Hollywood, Washington and elsewhere.
Today’s marches will be followed by more events on Sunday, including in Las Vegas, which was chosen by organisers to honour the city where the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history took place last August. Nevada is also a key battleground state in the 2018 midterm elections.
The protests come on the same day that the US federal government plunged into a “shutdown” after the Senate could not agree on a new budget.
Affecting hundreds of thousands of federal workers, the shutdown is the first in US history to occur while the same party – the Republicans – controls both Congress and the White House.
In London, anti-Trump protesters descended on the new site of the US embassy, declaring the president a “racist bigot” and calling for Theresa May to cancel her meeting with him at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.
About 20 activists from the campaign group Stand up to Racism pushed over a mock wall they had built in front of the embassy’s recently opened site in Vauxhall, south London.
It came a week after Trump publicly cancelled a visit to Britain to open the new site because, he said, it had been sold for “peanuts” and was built in an “off location” of London.
Battling heavy rain, protesters chanted “Donald Trump go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay”, and “from Calais to Mexico, all the walls have got to go”, the Press Association reports.
From his attacks on immigrants to the outrageous #Muslimban, we will tear down Donald #Trump’s racist wall! Thanks to everyone that turned out for today’s protest at the new #USEmbassypic.twitter.com/xjCOYCJ0QT
January 20, 2018
Lewis Nielsen, an activist for Stand up to Racism, led much of the crowd’s chanting, and later said that Trump will be “met by the biggest demonstration in British history” if he comes to the UK.
“Today marks a year since Trump came to office,” said the 24-year-old said.
“In that year, he’s proved himself to be a racist, sexist bigot. He’s tried to bring in a Muslim ban, he’s called the whole of Africa a shithole, he wants to build a wall in Mexico. It’s incredibly important we oppose his racism.
“If a state visit is arranged it will be a huge mistake for the Government, because the city and the country would be shut down by some of the biggest protests.”