Thousands of men, women and children march on Washington D.C. on Jan. 21. (Photo used with permission by Einar Kvaran under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License)

Junior Steven Tarver glanced about the crowd that lay before him. Tarver watched as a woman walked through the linked hands of his peers, cutting their group in half and separating them. The other half of his group was nearly a speck in the distance, as women, men and children marched around with signs of various sizes screaming at those who witnessed the plea for equality and understanding.

On Jan. 20, Tarver and a small group of students went on a trip to Washington DC to witness the inauguration of Donald J. Trump. The following day, Tarver and a few other students got separated from their group and became intertwined with the path of the Nasty Woman March. Unable to find their way out due to the massive amounts of people, Tarver and his peers stayed to observe the march.

“It was a huge [show] of our democracy — being able to watch the inauguration and our right to assemble,” Tarver said.

Tarver mentioned that the Trump supporters seemed to be more opposed to the proposal of unity within the nation in terms of gender and sexual orientation, whereas, the women at the Nasty Woman March openly supported the idea of equality and change. Though it happened by luck, Tarver said that, given the chance, he would definitely witness a protest like the Nasty Woman March on his own.

“At the inauguration, there was divisive speaking,” Tarver said. “I could relate to the hateful rhetoric that was being said, so I could relate to the people that were protesting.”

The Women’s March was a one-time march that occurred around the world to protest against Trump’s inauguration and advocate for the rights of all people. According to Washington’s mas transit system, 470,000 people had entered the system on the day of the march. Quite a staggering number compared to 200,000 people who were supposed to attend according to the permit given to organizers of the march.

“I love history, and this was a huge part, getting to witness and be a part of it,” Tarver said.