dispatches from quilt city

March for Women's Lives

Two weeks ago today, I set out for Washington, DC to attend the March for Women's Lives. The March held on April 25 was to protest for "Choice, Justice, Access, Health, Abortion, Global and Family Planning." Over 1,115,000 people attended the march and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

I went up early to volunteer at the National Organization for Women's (a co-sponsor of the March along with my current employer Planned Parenthood) headquarters. Immediately I was put to work Friday morning helping recruit people to promote NOW's new voter mobilization called 10 for Change. It was really wonderful seeing everyone I worked for this summer especially my boss Linda. This summer one of my main tasks was to secure memorabilia for the PAC auction held every summer at the NOW convention. In a lightbulb moment, I realized the March would be stockfull of celebrities and if we could get them to sign March posters they could be auctioned off for lots of money. I told my idea to Kim Gandy, the president of NOW, who told me she like the way my mind worked but we needed someone to be charge of the poster. Well of course I volunteered and secured myself a backstage pass.

After leaving the NOW office on Friday, I went to visit American University's Washington College of Law where I am now convinced I will be attending in the fall. It is everything I want in a law school. Laid back, feminist oriented, focused on government/non-profit service. It really was exciting.

The next day, after looking at houses in Virginia with our realtor, I made my way downtown to the DC Armory for the March kick-off event. From 3-12pm, my good friend Hannah and I passed out information and sold T-shirts till we about passed out from exhaustion. I've never seen women so excited about T-shirts in my whole life.

The next morning, the day of the March, we woke up bright and early and greeted buses coming from out of town at the Branch Avenue until about noon. I even got to personally greet all my coworkers arriving from North Carolina. Finally, we got to the mall and the excitement was truly palpable. There is nothing like being surrounded by a million people who feel the same way you do. Honestly, there were so many people I didn't think we would be able to logistically march around the capital. Thinking I had more time than I did I made my way backstage but instead ended up following Whoopi Goldberg and Christine Lahti to the front of the line. Suddenly, I looked around and I was right behind Ted Turner, Ashley Judd, Calli Khoui (screenwriter of Thelma and Louise and from my hometown), Camryn Manheim, Tyne Daly, and a ton of other celebrities. I introduced myself and had them all sign my NOW round and then the next thing I knew we were marching. In the midst of the hubbub I got pushed farther and farther back but I ended up marching the entire way with Tyne Daly's three daughters Alisabeth, Kathryne , and Alyxandra who adopted me and were incredibly kind. The marching itself was incredibly surreal. We were in this group of people as far as the eye could see walking towards the capitol. The truly surreal moment came when I glanced over and saw Gloria Steinem,far from the celebrity held front, marching with us normal people. I reintroduced myself and walked beside for about 15 minutes. It was of course a top ten moment of my life.

After the march, I went backstage to start gathering my celebrity signatures. Cady Lornell, Kim Gandy's daughter and a really sweet child, wanted to meet the celebrities too so she followed me around as we met everyone from Susan Sarandon to Moby to Carole King. I had my picture taken with Sheryl Crow and Julianne Moore - two of my absolute favorites. It was just another surreal moment from the weekend to look around you and realize your next to Candace Bergen, Ed Harris, the Indigo Girls.
The whole afternoon was fantastic and I stayed until the very end at 6pm and set out for North Carolina.

The whole time I was on such an andreneline high because I knew we were truly making history. While meeting all the famous people I've admired for so long was very cool, I think my favorite thing was how connected you felt to everyone. All weekend long if another marcher identified you as "on their side" it was like you were long lost friends and you could talk about anything. As cheesy as it sounds, we were all truly sisters that weekend. My only prayer for myself and my sisters is that we can transform all the positive energy and experience into incredible change especially on November 2!