Marches in NY, D.C. call for emphasis on the rights of Black women to overturn status quo
Organizers of the March for Black Women in Washington D.C. stand during the march which called attention to the abuses Black women face which are going unaddressed by the larger women's rights movements. Image Credit: Black Women's Blueprint Image Source: Black Women's Blueprint
Black women organizers in Washington D.C. and New York City marched, protested and called upon the nation this weekend to call for a “new social contract” with an emphasis on issues facing Black women.
As Black Women’s Blueprint, the group organizing the lead march in Washington D.C., stated in a press release: “Black women, cis, trans, and diverse identities, allies and comrades will unite and lock arms, marching unapologetically with all others who want to pull the foot of oppression off our necks and foreground the notion a new social contract is needed for all Black women, a new social contract that overturn to the dominant political narratives of the past, and courageous enough in the present to pass along to our future generations.”
Black Women’s Blue Print is also calling for the full reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which is currently set to expire on September 30, 2018. House GOP members have been refusing to reauthorize the bill as part of their push to support the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
The group is also calling for a focus on intersectional women’s rights concerns such as poverty, affordable housing, reproductive rights, immigration protections, and centering the most vulnerable sections of society by those who are running for office on progressive tickets. As stated on the website run by the group, the march is also an attempt by various communities to fight and push back against the Trump administration:
Recent actions by our federal government and leaders to dismantle our civil and human rights by plotting to eliminate access to health care, and in particular reproductive health; the increase of prisons while threatening to eliminate resources to communities of color that empower all of us to prevent violence against cis and trans identified women; and the undermining of economic justice demonstrates not only a disregard for the lives of all Black women in America, but perpetuates what James Baldwin prophetically proclaimed—that “the American Dream is at the expense of [Black people]”. The physical, financial and social enrichment of the nation-state at the expense of Black bodies and at the expense of Black lives is too old a strategy, and Black women will not allow for it.
According to reporting from WJLA, a CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C., the D.C. rally was assisted by the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, and the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative.