WHY DO WE MARCH?
When you imagine resistance, you probably think of signs and rallies. Over the last year, resistance has come to include frog costumes, singing and whistles.
At We Are America, resistance looks like loading a U-Haul with strangers from all over the country. It’s begging CVS clerks in Silver Spring to let a group of weary travelers use the bathroom. It’s a makeshift flotilla across the Susquehanna River and chatting with gas station attendants in Harford County about the “Route 40 crew” — who we are, why we’re marching and how we’re all connected.
Defying generations of division sewn by hatred and fear throughout America, WAAM resistance is the fortification, connection and creation of community.
We Are America marchers do not march with demands for our government. Yes, this stance confuses people (and seems to upset quite a few). Americans are conditioned to believe the immediate result of anti-fascist resistance is political change, expecting these demands of impeachment, funding adjustments, Congressional checks and balances to change the tide of a nation. WAAM understands that political change needs to start as change to American society itself. Our marchers – from all different ages, religions, ethnicities, and even political parties – share the conviction that a society built on exclusion and injustice is not tenable.
So WAAM’s demands are for our fellow Americans. Marching is a demonstration of our shared responsibility to care for one another when our government has failed us time and time again. From joining your local ICE watch, to practicing street medicine, to becoming a mentor for at-risk youth, to handing out warm meals in a public park, there are many ways to practice resistance.
Community care – found equally in treating a stranger’s blisters or hosting 70 travelers in a church – this is the core of resistance.
OUR STORY
Scrolling any news feed today feels like staring at an endless alarm: government-sanctioned kidnapping, threats of martial law in our streets and oligarchs siphoning public wealth at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens. Each story shows a country divided and in crisis, yet the nonstop churn can numb us.
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People are already standing up—at rallies, outside detention facilities, on courthouse steps. Still many feel isolated and powerless. We make signs, we call our representatives, but nothing seems to matter. So we are finding new ways to resist. Starting through Philadelphia’s 50501 network, teachers, baristas, veterans, parents, and students gathered online and around kitchen tables to decide what more to do. From these conversations grew the We Are America March, a 14-day walk from Independence Hall to the U.S. Capital, September 6-19, 2025.
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Such pilgrimages can be found throughout US history. When the crisis is deep and vast, when people need to feel connected and find strength – 300 miles from Delano to Sacramento, the Longest Walk of 1978, those three heroic marches from Selma to Montgomery – we unite and march. With every step, we take back our power and reclaim what it means to be American. When regular people act together, without violence, they move the country forward.
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Over 400 patriots marched, with almost 50 marchers covering every mile of the 160-mile route, carrying a copy of the Constitution to hand directly to Congress. With incredibly different backgrounds in terms of religion, ethnicity, education and even political party, our marchers hailed from all over the country.Anyone could join for a block, a day, or the whole way. At each stop along the march route, from yoga and singing in Delaware to a concert and camping in Cecil County, a flotilla in Havre de Grace – potlucks and potlucks and even more potlucks – we found a country united, resilient and yearning for connection and community. Each mile proved that brave Americans who value education, equality, diversity, freedom of speech, science, plain old compassion and empathy – we are everywhere. We are strong. We are united. We Are America.
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