At 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, 50 other impressively punctual Yale students and I set off in a bus from Phelps Gate. After hours of watching the road turn into a caravan of cars and other buses, more than our driver had ever seen on a trip like this, we reached Washington, D.C. and made our way to the Women’s March on Washington. My mother was in the northwest corner of D.C., cooking for all the friends and family who came for the march and were staying at our house; the march itself started a few blocks from my father’s office. I was proud to come to my home city and shut it down.

A few friends and I took the Metro downtown and found a place in the crowd. From our spot, if we concentrated, we could just hear the speeches of those on stage, and, at certain moments, see glimpses of the closest jumbotron. For a moment I saw Angela Davis speaking and heard her voice echoing over the waves of women and other people who made their way to the Capitol to march.

“At a challenging moment in our history, let us remind ourselves that we the hundreds of thousands, the millions of women, trans-people, men and youth who are here at the Women’s March,” Davis said.  “We recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages.”

There were moments, though, when attendees focused on their personal experience of the march rather than the collectivity that Davis emphasized. As the minutes ticked on past the 1:15 scheduled start time of the marching portion of the event, some began drowning out the voices of the speakers. When the Mothers of the Movement asked the crowd to say their murdered sons’ names, some chose to shout “March,” not “Trayvon Martin.” Some friends I talked to couldn’t hear the speakers, but other people opted not to listen. I felt most personally empowered when I was marching, chanting, and joining my voice with those around me; when I listened, though, I felt the collective weight of all we had to do. To feel this burden, in addition to the strength it takes to carry it, was crucial to the march.

The Women’s March, after initially stumbling over issues of inclusivity, began to listen to calls for intersectionality––the original, white organizers changed the name of the event from the “Million Woman March,” the name of a 1997 black women’s march, to the “Women’s March on Washington,” and took steps to diversify the event’s leadership and programming. The organizers seemed to truly embrace its stated principles. Women from the communities most endangered by Trump and Pence’s policies spoke about the fight they have been leading for lifetimes, a fight whose extent and depth many of us are just beginning to recognize. These women told the crowd what to do to help—to donate, to volunteer, to call, to learn.

I was eager to march. Walking in step with friends and strangers through the streets of my city felt like claiming power and brushing aside fear. Yet that empowerment, though central to the march, was not all it had to offer. Speakers like Davis, like Donna Hylton, a criminal justice reform activist, or Tamika Mallory, a lifelong activist and co-chair of the march, deepened that sense of empowerment. To it they added responsibility and necessity and urgency; these speakers shared their stories to educate and mobilize those of us who have just now awoken to so much of the injustice that we all must fight against. As Mallory said, “Welcome to our world. I stand here as a black woman, the descendent of slaves. My ancestors literally nursed our slave masters. Through the blood and tears of my people, we built this country. America cannot be great without me, you and all of us who are here today.”

I know I can do better. I am guilty of increasing my political involvement in this past election more when Donald Trump talked about pussy grabbing than when he mocked a disabled reporter; I, like much of the media, listened to the entirety of Cecile Richard’s speech and let my attention slip when I did not recognize those on stage—a fault of my narrow attention, before and during the march.

I will never forget seeing the streets of my city packed with people, pink with hats, and full of power. Now, back at Yale, I hope to remember the mission of the march, in addition to the spectacle. I hope to hold close both the strength I felt and all that I learned from those leading this movement. I hope to listen to what those who have come before me have learned and shared. A call to action must be heard and acted upon, not merely chanted.