The Columbus Women’s March is going forward as scheduled on Saturday, despite some other local Women’s March events becoming embroiled in controversy.
Up to 4,000 demonstrators are expected to participate at Women’s March this weekend in downtown Columbus. The annual event, which started in 2017 to protest Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, also seeks to bring attention to reproductive rights, criminal justice and immigration issues.
Recently, several state and local chapters split from the national group or cancelled their events, with some members complaining of anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry.
Rhiannon Childs, executive director of the Women’s March Ohio, disagrees that there’s a lot of dissension.
“Women’s March is against any forms of bigotry and oppression and that’s what we stand for,” Childs says. “That’s what I stand for and there has been no wavering on that.”
Childs says seven other marches will happen around Ohio this weekend.
“We’re still coming together,” Childs says. “We’re still staying on this united front. But we are growing, we are learning.”
Organizers of the Cincinnati March canceled their event for "practical not ideological" reasons, but other activists planned an alternative march for the same time Saturday.
