Protests, anti-Trump events offer inauguration alternative

President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration will be met with resistance from protesters hailing from across the country.

Rallies, protests and marches will be erupting throughout Washington, D.C., as Trump is officially sworn into office on Friday.

{mosads}Here’s a list of events happening before, during and after the inauguration ceremony:

Jan. 19: The Day Before the Inauguration

Andy Shallal, the owner of D.C.’s popular Busboys and Poets restaurants, is holding The Peace Ball: Voices of Hope and Resistance on the eve of Inauguration Day. The sold-out event will run from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Rather than billing the Peace Ball as a directly anti-Trump event, its invitation describes it as an opportunity to “celebrate the accomplishments and successes of the past four years” and reflect on the future.

Singers Solange and Esperanza Spalding will headline the ball. Other notable attendees include actress Ashley Judd, actor Danny Glover and celebrity chef José Andrés. Trump and Andrés are currently embroiled in a lawsuit sparked after Andrés pulled out of a planned restaurant for Trump’s D.C. hotel over Trump’s rhetoric about undocumented immigrants.

Jan. 20: Inauguration Day

Hours prior to Trump being sworn in as the 45th president, the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition is holding a protest — starting at 7 a.m. at the Navy Memorial — that hopes to attract tens of thousands of protesters to push back against Trump’s presidency.

ANSWER’s website describes the rally as a “massive demonstration” along Pennsylvania Avenue with “progressives” coming to D.C. from around the country. ANSWER has called Trump a “racist, sexist bigot.”

ANSWER has been vocal in its criticism of Trump over the past few months. In October, it helped organize a protest against Trump’s “bigotry” outside his D.C. hotel.

#Trump420: Marijuana advocates are also planning to come out in force on Inauguration Day.

DCMJ, a local group that led D.C.’s marijuana legalization effort in 2014, says it will dole out 4,200 joints on the morning of inauguration at 8 a.m. in the Dupont Circle neighborhood. While it’s legal for D.C. residents to smoke marijuana in private, it is still illegal to consume in public.

Four minutes and 20 seconds into the Trump presidency, organizers will tell participants to light up their joints.

Trump has previously said it should be a state’s right to decide whether to legalize marijuana, but he has not said whether he supports legalization. Trump has, however, said he backs medical marijuana.

But local organizers said that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Trump’s nominee for attorney general, is the main target of the protest. Sessions is a staunch opponent of legalizing marijuana.

Those joints came at a cost, though. All that work on the marijuana grinder meant blisters for the activists, the website DCist reports.

DisruptJ20: A group of D.C. organizers have planned a week of events aimed to shut down the inauguration and “paralyze the city itself” through blockades and marches, according to its website.

The group has already held an LGBT dance party outside of Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s home in the Chevy Chase neighborhood.

An organizer told the Guardian that the protests would have happened regardless of the 2016 election outcome, but “it took on a whole new meaning” in light of Trump’s surprising victory.

On Friday, the group will hold its “Festival of Resistance” from Columbus Circle to McPherson Square from noon to 5 p.m. They will hold a coordinated march and rally with “Occupy Inauguration.”

Jan. 21 : The Day After the Inauguration

The Women’s March on Washington will cap off a busy week of protests and rallies.

The march, which is expected to draw up to 200,000 participants, will begin at 10 a.m. on Independence Avenue and 3rd Street SW. There will also be hundreds of other sister marches nationwide held in solidarity.

Celebrities are also expected to be a large presence at the march. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem was named an honorary co-chair, along with singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte.

Other notable attendees are singers Cher and Katy Perry, comedian Amy Schumer and actresses Scarlett Johansson, Uzo Aduba and America Ferrera.

Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.), who is boycotting Trump’s inauguration, said he will attend the march with his wife and daughter.

Four Women for All Women, a 252-mile run from Harlem in New York City to D.C. that began on Wednesday, will join the Women’s March on Saturday in the nation’s capital. The run is raising money for Planned Parenthood, which Republican leaders plan to defund as a part of an ObamaCare repeal.

The Women’s March comes one week before the annual March for Life on Jan. 27. Trump’s incoming White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, plans to attend the anti-abortion march. 

Jan. 19–21

A three-day festival starting the day before the inauguration is hoping to provide some comic relief amid a partisan time.

“What a Joke” is a nationwide comedy festival that will have stand-up comedy performances in five D.C. locations and in cities nationwide — and across the pond in England. The proceeds will go to the American Civil Liberties Union.

According to DCist, they will sell Trump’s signature red hats, but with “Make America Great Again” replaced with “What a Joke.”

The D.C. organizers told the online publication that while they don’t expect the festival to bring immediate change to Congress, they still want the performances to celebrate unity and diversity.

“We want people to come out and to realize that there is a community of people who probably feel the way they do, and want to find a way to spend their time constructively but not so seriously or heavy,” one organizer said.