Black moms, their children, and other protesters stretched out their arms, took a depth breath, and made their way to a warrior two pose.

“What warrior two reminds us of it’s a battle against self-ignorance,” yoga instructor Sihnuu Hetep told the crowd. “We’re fighting those voices in our head that tell us we can’t or that we’re not enough.”

About 80 people came out to the Navy Memorial on Saturday to take part in Black Mamas March, where adults and kids alike colored protest signs, danced, marched, listened to speakers, and breathed together.

The event was co-organized by local moms and the nonprofit District MotherHUED in an effort to show solidarity with the movement against racism and police brutality in a family-friendly way. Between the coronavirus pandemic disproportionately affecting communities of color, the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and trying to raise kids, organizers said they wanted to create a rally where they could both voice concerns and teach their children about civic engagement.

District MotherHUED started four years ago with 50 Black millennial women who sought friendship, support for transitioning into motherhood, and balancing professional lives. (The organization is perhaps best known for its annual Momfrence — a celebration of Black motherhood.) Since then, the group has evolved into a nonprofit with thousands of followers that aims to address racial injustices by having “tough conversations,” says co-founder Simona Noce Wright.

“If folks are out here trying to physically take away Black lives, we can both protest that and also not allow it to take away our joy,” said Wright, who is six months pregnant with her third child. “We’re not going to let that happen.

Wright and march co-organizer Kiara Pesante Haughton looked around at other Black Lives Matters rallies, but they tended to start at 2 p.m. or later, which didn’t seem particularly toddler-friendly. While preparing for the Black Mamas March, Haughton says the organizing group had a running joke that “1 p.m. is international nap time for toddlers, so we’re organizing everything around the hours between 1 to 3 p.m. when kids kind of tap out.”

The two-hour event started at 11 a.m. A bit more than halfway through, organizers and parents lined up the children under 5 around the perimeter of the Navy Memorial for a mini toddlers’ march. The kids held signs, clapped, and waved at cameras as they made their way counterclockwise around the circle.

“I know I’m not powerless, I am powerful and I want to reclaim my power, but I want to do it in a way that is safe and is smart and a way that includes my children and that won’t put them in harm’s way,” says Haughton, who is the mother of a 2-year-old girl.

Black moms who attended the march said they’re glad to have a space to teach their kids about civic engagement. April Simington from Waldorf, Maryland, said it’s been difficult to balance conversations about racial injustice, the pandemic, and raising six boys between the ages of 6 and 10.

“I’m just trying to maintain for them. I don’t let them see my fear,” Simington said. “It’s a balance to teach them to be proud of who they are and educating them.”

She recently had her boys watch the documentary LA 92, the story behind the 1992 uprising in Los Angeles after the police killing of Rodney King, and the movie Just Mercy.

“I know I wasn’t taught my history the way I should have,” Simington said. “But with everything going on, I just wanted to get them involved.”

Amanda Brown Lierman from Silver Spring says she got “mom guilt” about taking her kids out to demonstrations during the pandemic, but “it’s history,” she says. “We have to go.”

She says she found out about MotherHUED when she was pregnant with her first child three years ago. At that time, Lierman was worried about having a child amid the high maternal mortality rate in the region among Black women.

“A lot of the women in the group really helped me through that period, and they’re the reason why I’m here today,” said Lierman, who now has 1- and 2-year-old daughters.

In addition to drawing attention to the joys and the challenges of Black motherhood, protesters also demanded an end to cash bail in Maryland and called on the District of Columbia Public Schools and Montgomery County Public Schools to remove police officers and security guards.

Haughton wanted people to know that the narrative around police violence tends to focus a lot on men. “But the actual reality is that Black women face a far harsher reality in our interactions with police and violence with police and school suspensions,” she said. “Many Black women who have been killed by the police have been mothers and they have left children motherless. And that’s a tough conversation that we have to have, too.”

Lierman said she’s hoping to draw attention to these issues now so their children won’t have to in the future.