As one of the organizers of Port Townsend’s Jan. 18, 2020, Womxn’s March, I’d like to comment on the photograph on the front page of your Jan. 22, 2020 edition.
First of all though, I’d like to thank the City of Port Townsend and the Port Townsend Police Department for their help and support of the march.
The photograph said that “But behind the march a smaller group of Trump supporters followed, carrying signs that read “Trump 2020.” Trump supporters were never told to get “behind the march,” and not purposefully placed at the end.
Before we started the move to Pope Marine Park and as I was speaking to the gathered crowd in the Quimper Mercantile parking lot, a woman wearing a pink MAGA hat approached me. She said something like this: “Penny, I read your comments in The Leader and the Peninsula Daily News where you expressed that the march participants do so for a variety of reasons ie, support for women’s rights, removing the current political administration, get out the vote, etc.” She then graciously asked me if the Trump supporters could join us in the march. “Of course,” I replied, “you are welcome. This is the United States and we all have the right to express our beliefs and opinions.”
I found this to be a very touching moment. For all the vitriol and angst we experience of late, this was a kind and inclusive moment at the least for me. We started lining up on the street and began the march toward Pope Marine Park. The Trump supporters just happened to “fall in” at the end of the march. I, wearing my kitty hat, marched beside them.
One man in the Trump group said to me, “You know, if we marched like this in` many other countries, we would be arrested.” I replied, “We are so lucky to live in the United States,” and indeed we are.
Penny Jensen
Port Townsend
