The first Women’s March on New Jersey began with an email.

In November 2016, a few weeks after the election of President Donald Trump, Elizabeth Meyer reached out to the organizers of the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., with a request: could she organize a similar march in Trenton?

She was given approval several days later.

From then on, the relationship between the national march and the New Jersey march was nonexistent, Meyer said. The national group did not provide any financial or organizational assistance the first year of the march in 2017, or the next year, or this year.

Since its inception, the Women’s March on New Jersey has operated as an independent coalition of local activists and organizations, Meyer said.

It was a distinction that was never articulated to the march’ssupporters until late last year, when accusations of anti-Semitism within the national Women’s March prompted Meyer and her co-organizers to assert the New Jersey march’s independence.

“The coalition does not receive any financial or organizational assistance from, nor is not affiliated with, the national Women's March, Inc.,” the lead organizers wrote at the bottom of a Dec. 3 press release.

The statement followed months of public backlash against several leaders of the national group for associating with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who is widely known for his anti-Semitic and homophobic rhetoric.

Tamika Mallory, co-president of the national Women’s March group, attended an event hosted by Farrakhan last year and called him “the GOAT” or “greatest of all time,” on social media. Accusations of anti-Semitism have also been leveled against