The Women’s March: The look of a movement matters
Liza Donovan, “Hear Our Voice.” Courtesy of Amplifier Foundation.
Artists sent 5000 poster designs when the Women’s March on Washington organizers put out a public call for submissions. The Amplifier Foundation announced they will print more than 30,000 posters and banners, and five of the posters can be downloaded from their website. You can find local artists at work for protest actions in cities all over the US, and you can probably find their images in your social media feeds.
The look of a movement matters — everything from the color of the activists to the clothes they wear, the signs they carry and the street theater they perform. When protesters carry their own signs, with creative slogans and artwork, they inspire and raise the spirits of the marchers in a way that the printed signs of the organizations can’t. The individual creativity can itself become serious rule-breaking, a disruption of conformity and a subversion of obedience to even progressive authority. The autonomy and commitment raises the threat level to the authorities and teaches the participants to make their movement a celebration of their aspirations, identity and solidarity.
The great mass movements, of course, have always had signs at their actions and posters announcing them. I’ve looked at photos of their demonstrations through years of teaching social movement history, but I haven’t seen the colorful printed and hand-drawn work that characterizes demonstrations from the sixties on.
What explains the changes? One thing that changed is the centrality of young people in the movements. The traditional left was succeeded and eclipsed by radicalized students, in movements shaped by minority rebellions, a youth counterculture and the women’s and gay liberation movements. Add to these the demographic and cultural changes, the technologies that made cheap, professional-level design and printing accessible, and then the easy proliferation of art on the web and in social media.
I look forward to the signs, the pastels and paintings, the paper mache effigies, and to the photos spreading through social media the morning after the inauguration.
Here’s an example of protest art from the rally of thousands that forced Trump to cancel his appearance at University of Illinois-Chicago, and alongside it a spectacle produced in another women’s march on Washington.
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A poster from a left organization on the ground, with the real voice of the people up front: “Cats Against Trump,” “We Shall OverCOMB,” “I’ll Swap 1 Trump for 10,000 Refugees.” Photo: Considered Sources. CC by 2.0. -
In the women’s march on Washington in March 1913, the marchers may not have made their own signs, but they captured the imagination with performances. Here German actress Hedwig Reicher becomes Columbia, in a claim that her cause is patriotic and American. Library of Congress. -
No signs at this student antifascist rally at CCNY, but there was a two-headed effigy of Mussolini and the college president. -
1919 Steel Strike. Strikers hold signs printed by their union.
