Two days before Trump 2.0, it’s about demonstrating strength in numbers.
Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: Jan. 15, 2024
Host: Remember those pink knitted hats? The Women’s March has a history going back to 2017. To be precise, to Donald Trump’s inauguration for his first term. That year in Sarasota, thousands walked across the Ringling Bridge and back, coinciding with a big protest in Washington. Now it’s the start of the second Trump administration, and the march will be back this Saturday morning, two days ahead of the inauguration. We talked to one of the organizers.
Johannes Werner: Tsi Day Smyth is a deputy director at Voices of Florida Fund, the organizers of the Sarasota Women’s March. Women’s rights have been whittled away over the last few years, and here’s how she explains what the Women’s March is trying to achieve:
Tsi Day Smyth.
Tsi Day Smyth: It was like having this awakening for a lot of women across the nation that we are a marginalized people. I think that’s something that’s very, very easy to forget, because when you think of marginalized people, you have a tendency to think of minorities. You’ll think of trans folks or people of color or queer folks—minorities. Undocumented people. But women are historically marginalized. We got so comfortable, I think, in our role, that we forgot for a while, since the original women’s movement, that we can lose the rights that we have gained. We hit a point of time where those rights were starting to take steps back, and so the Women’s March was birthed for 50% of the population to come together and remind the people that are in power that there is power in numbers and that there are a lot of us and that the people in government are supposed to work for the people, and that includes women and females. We’re falling into that again, and we’re seeing that in politics again when people aren’t showing up when they need to show up in order to fight for their own rights and the rights of their friends and neighbors. They’re not doing it anymore because they feel like it doesn’t matter. They feel like they don’t have an impact as an individual person. There needs to be this reminder that we once recognized that there is power in numbers. When we show up, there are so many of us. We are 50% of the population, but we have to show up and support each other and stand with each other.
JW: Tsi Day Smyth was part of the core group of organizers pushing for Amendment 4. The referendum to anchor the right to an abortion in the Florida constitution narrowly failed in the November elections.
The activists pushing for change have felt burned out. Smyth says that’s justified. But she also believes it’s time to get over it, because victory was within reach.
TDS: The day that the election happened and we saw the numbers come back, it was a crushing blow in that moment, because we were so close. We were so, so close. We have been working on this for years. This was our lives. To almost have something so monumental was amazing and devastating when it slipped between our fingers. With that said, I keep reflecting on the fact that we had an exceptionally high number. We had the majority of Floridians on our side. We had 57% of votes. That is bipartisan. That doesn’t matter if it’s Democrat, Republican, Independent. This is a very, very red state. It’s hard to get more than half of our population to agree on anything, and yet 57% of Floridians went out—sometimes in post-hurricane conditions—to vote in favor of Amendment 4.
Flyer for the 2025 Sarasota Women’s March.
JW: Going back to their local roots of the days when they were called Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida, the Voices of Florida Fund, among other local activities, has organized fund drives to give away supplies to local teachers. Now, on Jan. 18, the group is organizing the Sarasota Women’s March that coincides with other women’s marches across the United States.
This time, protesters will not march across the Ringling Bridge. Instead, from a starting point at Marina Jack, they will be headed towards downtown and the federal building, and then back.
Tsi Day Smyth expects a couple hundred marchers.
The event is scheduled for this Saturday, Jan. 18, 10 a.m., at Marina Jacks near downtown Sarasota. Parking is free. The organizers urge marchers to dress for the weather, wear comfortable footwear, and bring water to drink. That, in addition to affirming signs and megaphones.
For more information, look for Sarasota Women’s March 2025 on Facebook.
Reporting for WSLR News, Johannes Werner.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.