UNITED STATES

Women’s Convention aims to boost Women’s March resistance movement

October 27, 2017

The organizers of the Women’s March on Jan 21, 2017, convene in Detroit to build on the resistance movement that spawned the massive event. An estimated 2.6 million people marched in Washington DC and elsewhere on the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The Women’s Convention will bring together the thousands of the women who organized the linked demonstrations, which were also held in cities outside the United States.

“The weekend will consist of workshops and speaking forums to teach attendees how to take the Jan 21 protest and turn it into a movement,” according to spokesman Bob Bland.

One focus will be on recruiting Women’s March allies to contest the congressional, gubernatorial and local elections of Nov 2018.

“Women need to band together again -- the way we did on Jan 21 -- and then craft a policy agenda and continue building not just in the streets but also building political power in the halls of Congress and in our local communities,” Bland told the Huffington Post in June.

Since January, the Women’s March leaders have organized a series of actions. They include the “Day Without a Woman” and protests against Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the failed Republican health care bill.

The white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August brought new urgency to the need for women to accelerate their organizing efforts, according to Bland. The rally claimed the life of counter-protester Heather Heyer.

#22299 Published: September 10, 2017