US newspapers carry 'American Hijabi' protest ads

Several US newspapers donned a poster-size image of a woman wearing a headscarf in the colours of the American flag on Friday, part of a protest launched on the day of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration.

The New York Times and the Washington Post were among the outlets to publish the image, created by a graphic artist famous for his previous "Hope" poster of Barack Obama.

"We The People" appears at the top of the page. These are the first words of the US Constitution and also the name given the campaign against racial and ethnic hatred.

Completing the message is a legend at the bottom of the page: "Are Greater Than Fear."

Below that in smaller type are the words: "We the people are indivisible. We are resilient. We protect each other. We defend dignity. We are greater than fear."

The image was commissioned by the Amplifier Foundation, a Seattle, Washington-based group that raised funds for the "We The People" campaign through crowd-funding site Kickstarter.

As of early Friday, the campaign had raised $1.3 million from 22,840 donors.

The foundation invites people going to Trump's inauguration to use the poster as a protest sign.

Graphic artist Shepard Fairey, who created the image, was joined by two other artists, Ernesto Yerena and Jessica Sabogal who made other posters for the occasion.

Those images are of a black child, an elderly American Indian, and a female couple.

The images propped up in cities across seven continents on Saturday, where millions of women marched to denounce what they say are the anti-women attitudes and plans of the new US president.

Although the leading protest is centred in Washington, it has transformed into a mass global movement that brings together millions of women - and supporting male counterparts - from different factions of life, including political activists, celebrities and every day mothers, to stand in unity against policies and sentiments shared by the newly-sworn in president and his administration.

Just a day earlier, the world watched as the US inaugurated its 45th president, controversial business tycoon Donald trump who ploughed his way towards the White House using rhetoric deemed offensive to "every one apart from white males," as one Twitter user suggested.