I woke up at seven in the morning on Saturday Jan. 21 and got ready for the cold and long day ahead. As I was getting dressed, my mother handed me a sharpie and told me to write my name, age and my father’s phone number on my arm. Excitement had been coursing through me up until this point and now there was an inkling of fear at this precaution. I knew anything could go wrong at the Women’s March in Washington D.C.

My group and I ubered to the metro station, and the line to get into the metro was so long it wound around the entire parking lot four times. We waited in that line for an hour before we made it onto the train.

We walked out onto the streets filled with people at 10:30 and I had never seen a sight like it. People filled the streets wearing pink hats and carrying clever signs such as “Melania, blink twice if you need help” and “Black lives matter.” On the march’s official website, 400,000 people had registered. However, these numbers weren’t even close to the 1.2 million that showed up according to the New York Times. It felt as if I could barely wiggle through the crowd yet my group and I ended up close to the front of the rally where the leaders of the march and celebrities such as Scarlett Johansson and Janelle Monae spoke to a very exuberant crowd.

After an hour or so of speakers, the crowd grew restless and started shouting “We want to march! We want to march!”  The people who organized the march didn’t expect the turnout so we couldn’t march on the original route. Everyone started moving in different directions. “Just march towards the white house,” people yelled.  It didn’t matter where you went, a massive swarm of people was with you. My voice grew more and more hoarse throughout the day from screaming.

Many of the people who participated in the Women’s March on Washington believe that President Donald Trump has crossed a line. I believe he has instilled a fear in the American people like no other president in our country’s history. The people who participated in the march have a goal to stop sexism, racism, homophobia and other issues Trump does not seem to support.

I can’t quite put into words how this experience made me feel. It was so moving to see all these people of different genders, races, sexualities, ages and origins come together in one of the biggest and most peaceful protests of all time. We were there to protest Trump, but we were also there to stand up for our rights and to give hope to the hopeless.

There were marches all over the world that day in places such as Amsterdam, London, Kansas City, Chicago, New York and Boston. These acts of unity were meant to show that we will stand together in the days ahead. We made history and we definitely got our point across while doing it.