Rally Against the War on Women

The National Organization for Women and my chapter, San Fernando Valley/Northeast Los Angeles NOW, The Valley’s Voice for Choice, are supporting the Unite Against The War on Women march and rally set for downtown Los Angeles. I’m happy to say that the rally has also been endorsed by our Same Page/Misma Pagina Coalition ally, the California League of Latin American Citizens (CALLAC) and its national affiliate, the National League of Latin American Citizens (NLLAC).

I don’t have to tell you how critical it is to organize in today’s political arena if you’re alive, breathing, and have even a minimal concept of what’s going on in America. We thought that we were under assault with women’s clinic blockades and the murders of doctors who performed abortions. Today we’re faced with people trying to roll back the clock to well before the Roe vs Wade decision of 1973: fanatics are contesting the basis of the Griswold vs Connecticut decision of 1965 which legalized birth control!

Now is the time to unite against the attempt by fanatics to turn back the clock on women’s rights. We need to get out in the streets to demonstrate that we will not go back and that we will fight until full equality is won. Complacency and worrying about what our detractors might think about demonstrating and demanding equality in this situation is synonymous with defeat, for as Susan B. Anthony taught us:

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences…

Be there or be square…..

Saturday, April 28, 2012, 10:00am until 3:00pm

This event will start at Pershing Square located in downtown Los Angeles. We will gather starting at 10:00 a.m. at the south side of Pershing Square, along 6th Street, speakers will start at 10:30 a.m., at 11:00 a.m., we will march from 6th Street, to Main Street and then head up to Temple Street to Fletcher Bowron Square, which is located at Main and Temple, right across from City Hall. Our rally program will begin at 12:00 p.m. with speakers and entertainment.

Pershing Square has historically been a venue where protest has made its home. In 1900, King Camp Gillette (inventor of the safety razor) and Henry Gaylord Wilshire (for whom Wilshire Blvd is named) were arrested along with thousands of their fellow socialists (that year Wilshire was running for Congress in the 6th District of California on the ticket of the Social Democratic Party of America); they were arrested and jailed for reading the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States without getting a permit from the police department to speak in public! We’ve come a long way in Los Angeles from those dark days and we dare not go back.

If you can volunteer time to work on the preparation committee for this rally, email:

[email protected] and, check out the Facebook Page to invite your friends:

http://www.facebook.com/events/237626242997742/

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