Women march against Washington

by Mumia Abu-Jamal

They covered the streets like rain; women – in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions.

Millions marched in almost 700 cities in the U.S. and in world capitals.

Millions against Trump. Millions against Trumpism.

I’d read that it was planned to follow the bleak and blustering inauguration, but who knew that it would be this vast?

To paraphrase Trump, “It was huuuuuge!”

If ever anyone wondered what millions of women thought of the new American president, they answered with a thousand thunderclaps.

From toddlers in strollers to crones in wheelchairs and everyone in between, women poured into the streets of the capital and in hundreds of cities to denounce President Trump.

Not since President Bush announced his invasion of Iraq have we seen such sheer spectacle. Seldom have people demonstrated so clearly against an elected politician.

Millions marched in almost 700 cities in the U.S. and in world capitals. Millions against Trump. Millions against Trumpism.

To anyone who saw it, such a sight will not be soon forgotten.

Their signs ran from the silly to the serious, but almost all referenced women’s demands for equal rights and freedom.

They demonstrated by their incredible numbers that women are a force to be reckoned with.

© Copyright 2017 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Keep updated at www.freemumia.com. His new book is “Writing on the Wall,” edited by Joanna Hernandez. For Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries. Send our brother some love and light: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Mahanoy, 301 Morea Road, Frackville, PA 17932.

Here are the powerful words from women who marched in Mississippi

by Jenavieve Hatch

Marching for women’s rights in major, blue-leaning cities like Washington, D.C., New York City and Los Angeles is one thing. Marching in the Deep South in Jackson, Miss., is another thing entirely.

But that didn’t stop the hundreds of women and men who gathered outside the state’s capitol in Jackson on Saturday to march in solidarity with the millions marching around the world.

Jaribu Hill, the executive director at Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights, led the march and gave a speech about the importance of fighting for equal rights with movements like Black Lives Matter during the Trump presidency. A video of her powerful words was posted on YouTube by Theca Jones. (Watch it here.)

“We’ve been here before,” Hill told the cheering crowd on Saturday. “We’ve lived through others who tried to crush us and kill us, and we’re still standing, Trump.”

State Representative Alyce Clark reportedly attended the march, as did other public figures like Miss Black Mississippi winner Kristy Johnson, who brought up the persisting issues of the school-to-prison pipeline, equal pay and reproductive rights – especially as those issues pertain to black women.

Hill acknowledged that fighting for justice in a place like Mississippi – where Black men and women face a huge likelihood of being incarcerated and where there is only one remaining abortion clinic due to tremendous reproductive rights stigma – might seem futile. But she and those who rallied with her show no signs of slowing down.

“We’ve been here before,” Hill told the cheering crowd on Saturday. “We’ve lived through others who tried to crush us and kill us, and we’re still standing, Trump.”

“We know that we’re in Mississippi and we’re marginalized a lot,” Hill said. “But as you can see from the crowd today, we’re turning the corner on that isolation and that marginalization.”

Jenavieve Hatch is the associate women’s editor at The Huffington Post. She can be reached at [email protected].