As Santa Fe's Women's March ends, leaders say it inspired action

Jan. 19—Not everybody making their first foray into political organizing winds up with a 10,000- to 15,000-person event on their hands.

That's what happened to Lindsay Conover.

Seven years ago, riding a wave of progressive frustration after former President Donald Trump's 2016 election, she organized the first Santa Fe Women's March, held the day after his Jan. 20, 2017, inauguration, joining demonstrators who turned out by the millions for similar marches across the country, including in Washington, D.C.

Based on followers on the event's Facebook page, Conover thought 3,000 or 4,000 people might show up to march around the city before rallying outside the Roundhouse. But that chilly morning, nearly five times that number turned out, many donning pink hats and waving signs with messages supporting civil rights.

"I just was overwhelmed at the turnout, quite frankly," Conover said of the local event.

Marchers said in particular they were concerned about the erosion of rights for women, immigrants, Muslims and LGBTQ+ people under the Trump administration.

The outpouring of energy surprised many in its size and scale — including Conover herself.

"There were kids and elderly and women and men," Conover said. "... [It brought] just a huge sense of community that I'd never experienced in Santa Fe before, that we were all out there for the same reasons and that there were so many of us out there together."

Additional women's marches were held in Santa Fe in 2018 and 2019, with dwindling numbers. The 2020 march was canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic, and in 2021, it went virtual. The video shows about 150 viewers. There have been no local women's marches since then.

In the years that followed Trump's inauguration, he made good on many of his supporters' hopes and opponents' fears, while maintaining the incendiary rhetoric that was the hallmark of his campaign. He dismantled housing discrimination rules and rolled back protections for the LGBTQ+ community.

Perhaps most notably, he reshaped the U.S. Supreme Court with the appointment of three conservative justices. The court later overturned the long-standing Roe v. Wade ruling recognizing the constitutional right to abortion — a major victory for conservatives that prompted spontaneous protests across the country.

This year — a presidential election year that again features Trump — New Mexico's capital city doesn't have a Women's March at all. Conover and other local leaders say they don't view that as negative or even a sign that progressives have grown complacent under the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden.

Instead, they said, they believe many people redirected their outrage over Trump's election and fears about the state of the world into getting involved directly into policymaking, into running for office or into finding another way to get involved at the community level.

"I think a lot of that energy has moved from marching and making sure that our voices are heard and we are seen," said Jamie Cassutt, a Santa Fe city councilor first elected in 2019. "But what's more important is actually having the power to make those decisions."

State Rep. Reena Szczepanski, D-Santa Fe, said she, too, saw many women move from marching in 2017 into other civic roles.

"I think one of the interesting things that happened after President Trump was elected in 2016 ... was women started looking at all the ways they could be involved," said Szczepanski, who took office last year. "Some of the organizations that formed in the immediate aftermath are still having this tremendous impact."

'Inspired to get involved'

According to Conover, the events of 2016 and the 2017 Women's March ultimately set her on the path of being more aware of and involved in civic issues in her own backyard in Santa Fe.

At the time, the astrological counselor and musician had never been politically active. But in 2016, as then-presidential candidate Trump whipped up crowds with his fiery rhetoric, "I started paying attention," she said.

After Trump's unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton that November, Conover said she was distraught, concerned about the way Trump spoke about political enemies, women and various minority groups.

"I couldn't believe that this was happening, that Trump was our president ,and we had put a man into power who had said so many horrible things," Conover said.

She turned to the internet to commiserate with fellow progressives and saw some people were planning to hold demonstrations in their cities, including in D.C., the day after Trump's inauguration. Organizers hoped to send a message to the new president that "civil liberties must be protected." Conover got swept up in the idea.

"I just felt inspired to get involved in it," she said.

Conover started planning a local event.

'Let's get to work'

Conover said another pair of women organized the second Santa Fe Women's March, and she once again joined marchers and gave a speech.

Ultimately, however, she found herself wanting to channel her energy to something more long-term and proactive.

Today, Conover said, she's spending time volunteering with the S3 Santa Fe Housing Initiative, which aims to help resolve homelessness locally.

The thought, she said, was, "OK, let's get to work. How are we going to continue to try to make physical changes, physical differences in our communities?"

Szczepanski said she thinks many people, particularly women, experienced that drive to do more as a direct result of the march.

"The march is one day," she said. "But then what happens the other 364 days of the years?"

Szczepanski pointed to massive numbers of women who ran for office and were elected following Trump's election. Vox reported in 2018 a record-shattering 529 women filed to run for Congress that year, compared with 312 women in 2016. In 2021, New Mexico's own House of Representatives for the first time had women in a majority of seats, 37-33.

Cassutt, who said Trump's presidency was a major motivator for her running for office, said her election in 2019 represented the first time in Santa Fe's history women held a majority on the council.

"You have just seen this influx of women — of young women, of women who have young children — who have moved into policymaking positions of power," Cassutt said.

A march's uncertain future

Some Women's March events are going forward this weekend in New Mexico and elsewhere — even in solidly red Portales on the Texas border.

But will there be another civil rights demonstration on the history-making scale of the first Women's March?

The world is certainly as divided and restive as it was in 2017, if not more so. Since then, there was the coronavirus pandemic, which coincided with the summer of Black Lives Matter marches in 2020.

There was the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstration that ended with Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol.

Earlier this week, Trump shellacked his opponents in the Iowa caucuses, while Biden's approval ratings remain low.

Meanwhile, issues like abortion are moving from the federal to the state and local levels. That prompted the group Eastern New Mexico Rising to organize Portales' first Women's March last year.

Victoria Robledo, a member of the group, told Eastern New Mexico News it has given people in the conservative community a safe haven to express their concerns and advocate for their rights. "It's easy to feel powerless when you're only one person. But as a group we can find strength," she said.

"It's a really interesting moment in American history, where ... in my lifetime, I feel it's one of the first moments there has been such a different set of conditions for folks to live in depending on what state you live in," said Szczepanski, adding as a parent she doesn't view the younger generation as complacent in any way.

Szczepanski said she doesn't know if the Santa Fe's Women's March, or something like it, will ever return.

"Boy, I hope so," she said. "A public demonstration of that size serves a very important role in terms of raising awareness. It served its purpose in getting the attention of the nation."