International Women's Day in the U.S.
Focus is on war and war on women
Los Angeles
Ana Duarte explained IWD started with the militant struggle
of women textile workers in the U.S. against sweatshop
exploitation. Jennifer Kang gave a vivid description of the
historic Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Mass., in 1912.
Kang explained how solidarity among the very oppressed workers,
mostly women and immigrants, was crucial to their victory over
the textile mill bosses.
Cheri Chapman recited Sojourner Truth's "And Ain't I a
Woman" speech and closed with a quote by Frederick Douglass.
Maggie Vascassenno motivated the call for April 20 national
marches against war, racism and poverty.
Cleveland
An ad hoc committee of activists protested Bush and the
generals' attempts to use women's issues to justify their
imperialist war against Afghanistan. They held a "solidarity
line" with women around the world, picketing and chanting "No
rape, no war." Later, activists held an Art Speak Out with
poetry, music, visual art and statements condemning war,
racism, homophobia and women's oppression.
Riverside, Calif.
Students, primarily women of color, protested against war
and racism at the University of California at Riverside.
Lesbian speakers from Queer Alliance, Women of UC Riverside and
students from International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War &
End Racism), denounced racism, homophobia, sexism and attacks
on Muslim people in the wake of Sept. 11. UCR Students signed a
non-compliance petition, demanding that the administration not
turn students' private information over to the FBI and
Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Milwaukee
"We believe the enemy of all oppressed and exploited people
is capitalism," said Dr. Doreatha Mbalia of the Pan African
Revolutionary Socialist Party at a March 9 IWD forum sponsored
by A Job is a Right Campaign and held at the Wisconsin Black
Historical Society museum. Topics included "the war on
terrorism," police brutality and W-2, so-called welfare
reform.
Latasha Thurman chaired. Speakers included Janice Thurman of
AJRC, whose son was killed by an off-duty Milwaukee cop, Pamela
Fendt of UW-Milwaukee's Center for Economic Development, and
women affected by W-2 and other draconian social policies.
Wisconsin State Sen. Gwendolynne Moore said IWD is "a story
of very ordinary women making history." She called for massive
resistance to W-2 as racist and focused on "re-enslaving
people" to make profits instead of meeting human needs.
New York City
A Workers World Party IWD forum focused on "Resisting Bush's
war on women."
Rebecca Toledo called on all to go to Washington on April 20
to demand, "Money for jobs and all human needs, not for
war."
Lana El-Khalil of Al-Awda, and leader of F.I.S.T.--Fight
Israeli State Terrorism--described the courageous 17-month
struggle by Palestinians against Israel's U.S.-backed program
of genocide.
Vondora Jordan, a founder of Workfairness, activist, and
single mother of three, denounced the new Bush plan that forces
impoverished women to marry the man who fathered their
children--regardless of rape or battering. She outlined growing
difficulties poor families have dealing with city bureaucracies
that restrict and cut off benefits.
Nieves Ayers, a community activist and founder of La
Peña del Bronx, described the four years she spent in a
Chilean military concentration camp after the CIA-backed
counter-revolution that overthrew the democratically elected
Allende government. Ayers spoke movingly about years of torture
that she and other prisoners endured. Struggles by the women in
the camp actually won some concessions from the military.
Today, Ayers is struggling to save the community group La
Peña in the Bronx, which has been closed by police.
Minnie Bruce Pratt--anti-racist author and organizer for
Rainbow Flags for Mumia--told about a demonstration taking
place that evening in Tuscaloosa, Ala., protesting anti-lesbian
bigotry. Pratt put the battle within the context of more than a
century of resistance to racism and reaction in the Deep
South.
Also in NYC
The Global Sweatshop Coalition held its fifth annual
International Women's Day march and rally through the very
streets where the first IWD march took place early last
century.
Two hundred people marched and rallied through a crowded
shopping area. Protesters used puppets, flags, banners and
chants to explain how low wages in oppressed countries also
keep wages in the United States down and profits up.
Chicago
A multinational IWD demonstration of 300 addressed
sweatshops, domestic violence, immigrant rights, civil
liberties and cuts in state funding.
Jill Hill from Workers World Party spoke on cuts in human
services affecting women and children in Illinois. "The welfare
poor have now become the homeless, the imprisoned or the
working poor," she stressed. "This is in contrast to the huge
military budget."
Marchers stopped at the Immigration Office, Old Navy store,
the Federal Building and the Federal Prison where Muslim leader
Rabih Haddad is being held illegally. A contingent of Women In
Black-Chicago marched with a banner protesting the
"disappeared" victims of the "USA Patriot Act."
From reports by Martha Grevatt, Bryan Pfeiffer, Kathy
Durkin, G. Dunkel and Workers World bureaus in Los
Angeles and Chicago.
Reprinted from the March 21, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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