Together We March

by Leah Henderson

  While they raised much global awareness, the work is far from over. Poaching has decreased in some countries, but remains a threat in others. To protect these animals from possible extinction in our generation, the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos continues around the world today. When asked what needed to be done internationally, President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon said it best: “Let’s kill the [ivory] market, and we’ll save the animals. We’ll save also human beings.” Only then will the animals we share this earth with be truly safe. Until then, we must continue to march for them and us.

  NAACP YOUTH MARCH

  Ferguson, Missouri

  August 23, 2014

  It means a lot to me personally that we break this cycle of violence, defuse tension, and build trust.

  —Capt. Ronald Johnson of Missouri Highway Patrol

  TOGETHER WE MARCH FOR BLACK LIVES TO MATTER

  In 1965, when Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot by a police officer during a peaceful march in Marion, Alabama, Black citizens united to march from Selma to Montgomery. The six hundred marchers, who had broken no laws, were soon met by state troopers wielding nightsticks and tear gas. Marchers only wanted protection under the law for all people, but realized they were not even afforded protection in the streets by their own community police force.

  It was not the first time some police officers stood in the way of peaceful marches for progress and free speech, and, unfortunately, it would not be the last. While police officers work hard to keep us safe and maintain order, sometimes this protection is not equal and can even be used to falsely justify brutality and intimidation against others. No group has experienced this more than the Black community. The tense relationship between law enforcement and the Black community began during slavery and the Jim Crow era, but did not exist only in the South nor end with civil rights.

  So, on August 9, 2014, when eighteen-year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, the Black community was frustrated, angered, and saddened, but not surprised. Darren Wilson, a white officer, claimed Brown reached into his police car, so he shot him in self-defense. But witnesses told varying stories. Either way, Brown was an unarmed teen, and for people in Ferguson and the Black community at large, they saw yet another unarmed Black person killed needlessly.

  The Ferguson community erupted. Some looted, but most marched, shouted, and cried, joining others in the streets, night after night in protest. They refused to let this tragedy go ignored. But even those protesting peacefully found themselves confronted by militarized police with tear gas, flash grenades, and rubber bullets.

  Back in 2013—a year after another unarmed Black teen, Trayvon Martin, had been fatally shot and his killer was acquitted—Alicia Garza, one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, a group that speaks out about violence against Black people, wrote on Facebook, “I continue to be surprised at how little Black lives matter.” This sparked a tweet from Los Angeles based community organizer Patrisse Khan-Cullors: #BlackLivesMatter, which garnered a tremendous response. Weeks after the Michael Brown killing, people in Ferguson agreed. They were ready to show just how much Black life did matter to them. Many understood fatal killings like this were happening all across America, and they couldn’t be silent anymore, even with the heavy police presence. Soon the eyes of the country were on Ferguson, and the epidemic of police shootings of unarmed Black people was in the forefront of the nation’s mind.

  Finally, on August 23, after weeks of unrest, the St. Louis County chapter of the NAACP organized an official youth march through Ferguson to help young people turn some of their frustrations into action. Leaders knew it was vital for everyone to refocus their anger. Activism was what was needed instead. So, after most of the news media had gone, hundreds of young people came to Ferguson to march. Many wore bright T-shirts with a quote from Roslyn M. Brock, NAACP Board of Directors Chairman Emeritus, that read COURAGE WILL NOT SKIP THIS GENERATION. And with every step they took together, their courage got stronger. At first, they walked in silence in remembrance and as a call for peace; then, borrowing the beat from a 1990s rap song, they chanted, “Ain’t no power like the people’s power. Because the people’s power will vote!” Although the march was for the young, older marchers both white and Black joined the procession up and down a half-mile stretch in Ferguson.

  This time the response by police was much different. They helped lead the way in regular uniforms not riot gear, whether holding up an NAACP banner out in front or marching hand in hand with the young. In order to move forward and correct the wrongs of the past, they understood everyone needed to come together, march together, and demand justice for all together.

  Since the Ferguson shooting, the killing of Black people by police has not ceased. But in response, communities across the country are following in Ferguson’s footsteps with demonstrations, rallies, and marches. People refuse to stay silent. The Black Lives Matter movement now has forty member-led chapters worldwide, and it continues to grow, ignited by small marches and a drive to seek an end to racial violence.

  WOMEN’S MARCH

  Washington, DC, and Worldwide

  January 21, 2017

  We join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore… women‘s rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.

  —Women’s March 2017 “Mission & Vision”

  TOGETHER WE MARCH IN UNITY FOR ALL WOMEN'S RIGHTS

  Long before suffragists in England trudged through mud in 1907 demanding the vote, or women in America fought for liberation beginning in the 1960s, Abigail Adams, wife and personal advisor to John Adams, one of America’s Founding Fathers, implored her husband to “remember the ladies.” She understood how vital it was for women to have protections under the law, and she warned, “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.”

  More than two hundred years later, her words continue to ring true. In almost every aspect of life, women still fight for equality, and the right to make choices for themselves. They are confronted with barriers and metaphorical glass ceilings, leaving them stalled and underrepresented in the upper ranks of academia, corporate America, the tech world, and in political life. Sexual and domestic violence are still real everyday fears for many women, and women are also engaged in a constant fight for adequate health care, birth control, childcare, and family-leave benefits. Women of color and poor, transgender, bisexual, queer, disabled, immigrant, and indigenous women fare even worse in these areas.

  While earlier women’s movements had made strides, at the end of 2016, many women felt the gains they had made in this struggle were in danger of being yanked away by policies threatened by the incoming administration. In online chat groups, women expressed their shock, frustration, and anger about where they believed their rights and the country would soon be headed under the incoming administration. Beginning as a single Facebook post, “I think we should march!” turned into a rallying cry overnight, endorsed online by more than 300,000 women and their supporters, who were eager to join a collective movement. Women were ready to march to let political leaders and the world know that equal pay, freedom from violence, the ability to govern their own bodies, and other women’s rights were issues that mattered to them.

  The aim of the Women’s March organizers was to be inclusive, calling on women from all backgrounds, religious affiliations, economic classes, and geographic locations to march together. The march would fight for a woman’s right to education, property, work, and equal rights in family law, but organizers also understood these rights intersected fundamentally with a number of other causes they cared about, such as racial injustice, disability rights, immigration rights, and LGBTQIA+ rights. They were ready to speak for them all.

  The date was set for one day after the in
auguration of America’s forty-fifth president. The morning of January 21, 2017, organizers expected a crowd of 200,000, but nearly half a million people showed up! People from all over the country journeyed to Washington, DC, many donning pink clothing and pink hats, making a powerful visual statement. Celebrities and politicians joined the voices of thousands as they marched along the National Mall, headed for the Washington Monument, with thousands of signs displaying their frustrations to the world. Protesters hoped to trigger a resistance movement against messages of hate. Their message was carried all over as 673 sister marches took place across the country and 261 marches were held internationally. Worldwide, more than five million people got involved.

  As with so many marches before, participants learned that everyone has the power and ability to resist in their own communities, not just at big events, but also by voting. The call for voter turnout was answered, and the 2018 midterm elections led to many historic wins by female candidates.

  However, other politicians continue to threaten the rights of women, so the fight is not over. Women’s marches occur each year, bringing women together to protect their rights and those of other vulnerable groups in their own families and communities. Women and their allies will continue to march together to remind those in power and the whole world to “remember the ladies.”

  THE WALK TO STAY HOME: A JOURNEY OF HOPE

  New York, New York, to Washington, DC

  February 15–March 1, 2018

  We walk in community for our community.

  —Hector Jairo Martinez, The Walk to Stay Home marcher

  TOGETHER WE MARCH TO DECLARE OUR HOME

  “I went down to the capital and I / took back what they stole from me and I / took back my dignity and I / took back my humanity…”

  Throughout history, these words could have been spoken by so many who marched, sacrificed, and struggled for freedom and inclusion. But in 2018, they were uttered from the hearts of a group of young people, known as DREAMers, committed to coming out of the shadows to speak for themselves and the over eleven million undocumented immigrants living on the margins of America, trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.

  Back in 2001, lawmakers introduced a bill in Congress known as the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM). It would afford some undocumented minors brought to the US illegally when they were young, through no fault of their own, the ability to seek higher education, obtain a driver’s license, and get a job. But unfortunately, many versions of the bill failed to pass through Congress, leaving these young people living with uncertainty.

  It wasn’t until 2012, when President Barack Obama issued an executive order, that certain undocumented children were granted protection from possible deportation to countries many of them hardly knew. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was not a perfect or permanent solution, but it was a start, and many of the young people, or DREAMers, it would benefit refused to get discouraged.

  But just five years later, on September 5, 2017, after President Obama left office, the DACA program was ended. No more applications would be taken, and only a small number of DACA recipients could apply for the two-year renewal. This left thousands of young immigrants’ futures at risk. Lawmakers were given six months to find a solution, but there was much doubt they would. That is when the Seed Project, a nonviolent organization fighting for permanent protections for undocumented youth, believed it was time to rally together and have a symbolic walk—The Walk to Stay Home: A Journey of Hope. Much like the Longest Walk and other multiday marches, the more ground the undocumented young people and their supporters covered, the more attention they would garner for their fight.

  Many of them had always felt like statistics, not people. But now it was time to tell their stories. They needed to show why it was so important to pass a “clean” DREAM Act that gave them the opportunity to become citizens of the country they have always called home, without harming others in immigrant communities in the process. Along the 250-mile walk from New York to Washington, DC, they needed to change the minds of unaccepting people in the community and shift lawmakers into more aggressive action to protect them.

  Eleven marchers were chosen to symbolize each of the eleven million undocumented voices that often go unheard, or else are vilified in the news. Most of the marchers were in their twenties, and had come from all over the country to protest for the right to stay. They worked together to make it through, sharing the stories behind their statistics at rallies, and shouting out their future hopes. The march was long and grueling but as one marcher, Hector J. Martinez, said, “We will take a chance, because our community is worth fighting for.” They slept in churches and relied on the generosity of strangers along the arduous walk. It took fifteen days, walking an average of eighteen miles a day, on highway shoulders, unpaved paths, and sidewalks, but they made it to Washington—together. Full of uncertainty and hope, they were determined to be seen and heard, even while many lawmakers continued to push their concerns to the side. They had come a long way for their right to stay home.

  Though many in the nation heard the stories of these DREAMers, DACA’s future is still uncertain. The mission statement of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services no longer refers to the United States as a “nation of immigrants,” and instead of welcoming people, there are movements to detain and ban more and more groups of people who come here seeking refuge and better lives. So the DREAMers and their supporters will continue to fight for everything they marched for until Congress steps in to protect this vulnerable population that contributes so much to America.

  MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

  Washington, DC, and Worldwide

  March 24, 2018

  We are the turn of this century. We are the voice for change. We are the pieces to fix what America is falling short on.

  —Mya Middleton, March for Our Lives speaker

  TOGETHER WE MARCH BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER MORE THAN GUNS

  Across America, students should be thinking about their schoolwork, but instead some have found themselves ducking under desks and running for their lives. In recent history, mass shootings have become a terrifying and frequent reality in America. Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook Elementary School are known nationwide, not because they are home to the country’s best debate team or football champions, but because some of the most tragic mass shootings in US history took place on their grounds.

  After each shooting, the call for gun control got stronger around the country; however, it was not loud enough to compete with the voices defending people’s Second Amendment right to possess firearms—gun lobbyists like the National Rifle Association, politicians financially supported by them, and gun owners. Each time people promised never again; each time nothing changed.

  But in 2018, survivors of a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, pushed back their grief and acted. After seventeen of their classmates and school staff members were killed by a nineteen-year-old gunman, the students were angered by how easily he could legally buy an assault rifle and destroy lives. Immediately, they demanded change. They used social media, television, radio and newspaper interviews, and opinion pieces to get their message heard. #NeverAgain, #March4OurLives, and #DouglasStrong became their hashtag rallying cries.

  They felt strongly that only state and national gun law reform would prevent this from happening again to another school or group of people. They did not want condolences, apologies, and prayers. They wanted action and they didn’t trust their futures to those who hadn’t yet done anything to protect them. Within a little over a week, the students themselves met with Florida lawmakers and began to plan their first step—a march.

  In one student’s living room, the teens organized. Parkland survivors Cameron Kasky, Emma González, David Hogg, Jaclyn Corin, Alex Wind, and Ryan Deitsch took the lead, with the help of the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety. They reached out to
students from other communities also affected by gun violence, especially students of color in urban areas, whose voices were often ignored. Leading by example, they mobilized young people throughout America to speak up for more gun control.

  March organizers received an overwhelming show of support from around the country through social media posts and donations. Five short weeks later, the March for Our Lives was a reality. On March 24, 2018, more than 200,000 people of all ages and backgrounds met in Washington, DC, for the central march to protest the lack of gun control laws that left communities and schools vulnerable to gun violence, especially by assault rifles. Families, students, and supporters of those affected by gun violence crowded Pennsylvania Avenue, demanding that their lives and the safety of others become the priority, not guns, and calling for universal background checks and bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines (ammunition used in guns). They wanted lawmakers in Washington to know they were not going to back down and that many of them would soon have the power to vote. On each corner, volunteers in neon yellow encouraged people to register to vote. While politicians had told young people to stay silent and wait, by their numbers, they were saying they refused to do so. During the march, protesters took to social media, tweeting #MarchForOurLives nearly four million times. They believed gun violence could be fixed, and by marching, they wanted politicians to know they are the generation that is willing to fix it!