Nancy Keefe Rhodes called for her “Syracuse sisters” to join her as she boarded a bus past midnight on Saturday in North Syracuse. The bus driver, welcoming people aboard, looked confused as a line of women made their way to the front of the crowd.

“There’s 21 of us,” Rhodes told him. “We’re a group.”

The driver laughed.

“I thought you were all sisters, and I was like, wow, that’s a big family.”  

The third of three central New York buses heading for the Women’s March on Washington showed up to North Syracuse Junior High School at 12:32 a.m. — 20 minutes late — but that did little to stifle the bus riders’ cheery mood. The 49 people traveling on the bus early Saturday morning were ready to join the 500,000 others descending on the nation’s capital to march in support of groups they felt were marginalized by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign: women, Muslims, Hispanics, African-Americans, and the LGBTQ community.

Trump was officially sworn in Friday as the 45th president of the United States.  

Homemade posters were loaded below the bus in addition to backpacks and boxes of water. Hillary Clinton campaign attire was donned by many in the crowd along with logos associated with the feminist movement. Some carried blankets, ready to sleep during the six-and-a-half hour ride from Syracuse to Washington, D.C. Most of the riders were women, but there was a handful of men on the three-bus caravan.

The third bus departed about 15 minutes after it had arrived. Kelly Cullen, one of the bus trip’s organizers, passed around a clipboard for people to write their contact phone numbers next to their first name and last initial. She reminded the marchers that the bus would depart promptly at 7 p.m. Saturday before offering to put a documentary about Obama’s presidency on the bus TVs. 

The riders engaged in small talk about their families and friends with the strangers they’d be spending the next 24 hours with. Some talked about past vacations to the nation’s capital, others joked about how they handled long bus rides. Laughs and smiles were abundant.

Notably absent from bus riders’ conversations, however, was talk of President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech, his policies or the presidential election that had divided the country for over a year and a half.

“We’re here to be united, to stand together,” said Kerri Windrick, who traveled on the bus to walk in the Women’s March. “It’s about putting 2016 behind us and moving forward.”

Windrick said she felt the need to attend the march to let go of pent-up emotions from the bitter election cycle. She saw the march as an outlet for people to release their anger in a positive way.

Like many of the passengers on the bus, Windrick was marching without anyone she knew. She heard about the Rally Bus online and traveled from Watertown, New York, about an hour north of Syracuse, to take the bus to Washington.

“I’m excited because there’s going to be so many people there, from every walk of life,” Windrick said. “The fact that we can all be there, working towards the same goals, is pretty awesome.”

Rhodes, referred to as “the Bus Captain” by many of the marchers, signed up to ride the bus on Nov. 16. She posted a link on Facebook, inviting others to join her, and received 21 replies.

The week before the march, the 21 women gathered for a dinner and got to know each other.

“We called ourselves the ‘Syracuse Sisters,’” Rhodes said. “It kind of just worked.”  

By 1 a.m., most of the bus riders had wrapped themselves in blankets and went to sleep. It was not until 6 a.m., five-and-a-half hours after the bus left Syracuse, that the bus stopped at a McDonald’s north of the Maryland/Pennsylvania border.

Some riders brushed their teeth in the McDonald’s restroom while others ordered breakfast. The line of bus riders for the restroom extended across the entire restaurant.

“Today’s the wrong day to go to D.C.,” a man sitting in the restaurant told the bus riders in line. “Yesterday was the day things happened.”

Maureen Fitzgerald-Branshaw was unphased and did not respond to him.

“I’m not here to fight,” she said. “I’m here for something positive.”

Published on January 21, 2017 at 12:41 pm

Contact Jordan: jmulle01@syr.edu | @jordanmuller18