Hana woman lit fuse for march on Washington

What started as a Facebook event post following Trump’s election grew beyond anyone’s expectations

Hana grandmother Teresa Shook is being labeled the spark that ignited a movement which could involve 200,000 people marching in Washington, D.C., the day after Donald Trump's inauguration.

Called the Women's March on Washington, organizers nationally and locally say that the Jan. 21 march is one with a positive message of solidarity, women's rights and inclusiveness, despite its fledging beginnings.

Feeling discouraged and numb over Trump becoming president, Shook, who has lived in rural Hana for 16 years, took to Facebook to connect with others after the election.

"I just started feeling we should do something," said the retired attorney, who did not want to divulge her age. "This idea of having a march came to me."

She wanted to show Trump, whose rhetoric has offended women and minorities, that "we are powerful in our own right."

She got some positive feedback about a march and created an event page.

At the end of the first day, the march had 40 people coming and 40 interested. But when Shook woke up the next day, participation had exploded, with 10,000 people coming and 10,000 others interested. The buzz even locked up her event page.

"I was like, 'What?' " Shook recalled.

She said that she walked around her room saying, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God."

Initially Shook and others without much experience in large-event organization began making plans for the march, but eventually the march got enormous and leadership was turned over to activists and those with more experience.

Issues in the infancy stages had to be ironed out, including the name of the event.

Shook initially chose the name "The Million Woman March."

"I was just thinking numbers," she said. But that name had been used for a march in Pennsylvania in 1997.

With the major planning out of her hands, Shook is still busy fielding media calls, including from The Washington Post, to repeat her story. Her email and voicemail are full when she wakes up.

But the limelight and her busier-than-usual schedule still haven't changed her.

"It's all good. I'm so humbled and excited and honored to be part of this," said Shook, who does editing for the Hanaside News, a quarterly newspaper.

She has been dubbed the march's "firestarter," by one of the early organizers.

Shook thanked the "thousands of women and men" who have volunteered their time, some around the clock to make the march happen.

Shook knows many stories of everyday people who have poured their hearts into the movement.

"My hope (is) this is going to inspire a new wave of social activism, especially in the young people. This is their job now, they have to stand up," Shook said.

People will have to be "vigilant for the next four years," she added.

Shook said "it's awesome" that marches are being held all over the country, including on Maui.

"I want to be in 10 places at once," she said of the various marches, including in Indiana, where she grew up in a conservative Republican town.

Shook moved to Hana in 2000 from Santa Cruz, Calif. A breast cancer survivor, she had a friend in her breast cancer survivor group who lived in Santa Cruz but had a place in Hana.

Shook's father died in 2000 and her friend invited her to Hana, knowing Shook was having a hard time dealing with her loss.

"I just fell in love with Hana. I felt it was my home."

After the move, Shook continued to practice law, flying back and forth from Hana to Santa Cruz to do so.

She stopped practicing law in the mid-2000s. But she also has a degree in teaching and returned to the U.S. in June after a teaching stint in Africa.

A single parent, Shook has two adult sons and four "grand-girls."

Shook said that she thought about her granddaughters when Trump was elected and didn't want them to live in a world tolerant of rape and misogynistic men.

"I was really thinking of them," she said.

Shook will leave next week for Washington, D.C., where she will participate in the national march.

She said she is marching "for the greater good of all people, for a fair, just and inclusive America."

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.