‘I want a better world for my child.’ Youth lead the way in 2020 Raleigh Women’s March.
Lindsey Barbee held her daughter on her shoulders so she could get a better view as thousands of women, men, children and a few dogs marched through Raleigh demonstrating for equal rights.
Barbee said that’s something she wanted her daughter to see and be a part of.
“She’s almost four; she’s just about to start getting it and it’s time to put actions into words,” Barbee said. “I want her to grow up in a country whose leaders respect her as a person. We’re fighting to protect her future. I want a better world for my child.”
On a brisk and sunny Sunday afternoon, thousands took to the streets of downtown for the Raleigh Women’s March. Now in its fourth year, the local demonstration is one of the city’s largest gatherings, with the blocks around the statehouse packed with activists pushing for equal rights.
The first Raleigh Women’s March was held in 2017 as a local offshoot of a worldwide demonstration following the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Sponsored and organized by the group Mobilize Women NC, the march has continued to gain momentum, moving to Sunday in 2020.
This year’s march falls on what to many feels like a political precipice as the country prepares for the 2020 presidential election. More than a week ago, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, theoretically giving the nearly five decade struggle enough votes to pass, though according to The New York Times, the last deadline expired more than 30 years ago. The amendment would require pay equity and other equal protections between men and women.
The U.S. Senate is also in the midst of the impeachment trial of Trump.
In Raleigh, marchers began on the corner of Jones Street and marched around the Halifax Mall, wrapping around the entire three block complex in a chorus of chants and songs, many holding protest signs or banners supporting Democratic presidential candidates.
Most of Sunday’s event took place in the grassy center of Halifax Mall, where nearly a dozen speakers took the stage, representing a wide range of issues, from healthcare and reproductive rights, to indigenous people’s rights, to pay inequality between men and women.
Longtime activist and march organizer Yevonne Brannon said a new generation is ready to pick up the torch for women’s rights.
“I think you see a lot of young women who are anxious,” Brannon said at a march event earlier in the week. “They’re willing and ready and want to connect to their world. They’re very frustrated by coming out of high school and entering college, entering the workplace and seeing that we’re still facing many of the things they read about in their U.S. History classes.”
Kristin Alexander of Goldsboro traveled with a group of friends from Eastern North Carolina to be at Sunday’s march in Raleigh, the first march she has attended.
“We’re young women, we’re millennials and we just want equal rights,” Alexander said. “We don’t want to take anything from anyone else, we just want to be treated the same way.”
Marching in a long white dress commemorating the efforts of suffragettes in wining the right to vote for women, Jo Nicholas, the president of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, said equal pay has been a lifetime struggle in her career in education.
“You could see at some of the levels (of teaching), who got promoted, who got the higher jobs, even though you had more experience, because they were male,” Nicholas said.
Mary Anne Howard said she marched in support of the ERA when she was in her early 20s and is saddened to still be pushing for those rights at 71. Wearing the knit pink hat made famous by the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, Howard said she didn’t know about Sunday’s march until a group of younger friends told her about it the night before.
“Over the years, I think we’ve grown somewhat complacent,” Howard said. “I’m hopeful in the younger generation. They bring a new energy, new light and momentum.”
Julie Dunsmore and John Wilson traveled from Virginia to march with their daughter Lizzie Dunsmore, a college student at N.C. State.
“I’m very concerned to see my own daughter potentially have less right to control her reproductive rights than I had,” Julie Dunsmore said.
Last year Lizzie and Wilson marched together, and this year they marched as a family, with Lizzie saying she became more political after the 2016 election.
“If you don’t tell them you want something they won’t know; that’s why you have to fight for it,” Lizzie Dunsmore said, adding she believes progress comes by generations working together. “I feel like older generations are responsible. Our generation has to fight, but the older generations need to undue the wrongs.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2020 at 3:43 PM.
