Donald Trump
was sworn in as 45th president of this country on January 20, 2017
and wasted no time in beginning to dismantle all the Obama Administration had worked
so hard to accomplish. I marched in the Women’s March held in NYC on January
21rst. The main march was in Washington,
DC but I couldn’t get there. Why at 71 years of age would I want to march? Well…I
marched on my first picket line when I was fifteen years old in front of Woolworth's in Berkeley, CA. This was
over fifty years ago when the Civil Rights Movement was spreading throughout the
country calling for an end to unjust, bigoted practices. Dr. King had called for sympathy pickets because of Woolworth’s racist
policies in the south.
I ‘m
marched in the Women's March because I want to know which America, Trump wants to make great again.
Is it the America that bombed baby girls
in Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama…or the America that murdered voter registration workers in
Mississippi? Is it the America that brutally killed Emmet Till…or the
America that firebombed freedom rider buses? Is it the America that lynched
black men leaving bodies hanging from trees…the strange fruit that Billie
Holiday sang about in her song? Or is it the America where the Ku Klux Klan
(KKK) burned crosses on black people’s property then terrorizing and killing them? Is it the America that assassinated Medgar Evers... or the America
that had segregated Armed Forces until the Vietnam War? Soldiers would return from war still facing the same intolerance and hatred prior to risking their
lives for their country. I was alive when all this was happening in America. I
picketed, I sang, I marched, I went to jail. I do not want to go back in time. So I want
to know which America is Trump talking about making great again?
The Women’s
March was all inclusive in addressing human rights and justice for all. One of
the signs stated LOVE TRUMPS HATE! It was not about gender, it was not about
race but it was about unity…the good people in the world coming together in the
struggle to keep democratic ideals alive and well in America.
