From the Pages of History Dept.: I blog-posted the piece below more than a decade ago, by which time they had become footnotes to an admirably sane settling-in of society – or so it seemed to naive me. The forces of horrific paternalism were arming themselves, so that soon the Supreme Court could be stacked with its worst-ever appointments by our worst-ever President. And, sure enough, Roe v Wade was overturned and women are once again dying because their reproductive rights are denied. With the clown car about to pull up to the White House once again, I’m reposting this piece as a reminder that our most important duty now is to resist the hopelessness that comes with so awful a political fate as this country soon will suffer. It’s my report on the March for Women’s Equality and Women’s Lives that took place in Washington, D.C., on April 9, 1989.
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| Photo by Michael Ackerman |
It became the surprise rallying cry of the march, as a crowd estimated at between 300,000 and 600,000 chanted the slogan from pedestrian-packed Pennsylvania Ave., Constitution Ave., 1st St., 3rd St. and the steps and lawn of the Capitol itself.
The march offically began Sunday morning on the north lawn of the Washington Monument, but for many Albany-area residents, the march began late Saturday as they boarded buses sponsored by local affiliates of the National Organization for Women, the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood.
At 10:30 PM, three Greyhound buses idle their engines in a parking lot at the State Office Campus. During the next few minutes the scene resembles a workday morning as car after car arrives, parks, unloads. Just as it seems that the crowd will overwhelm the bus capacity, six more buses pull in and circle the lot in formation before joining the caravan. There’s a happy sense of a picnic or vacation, but buoyed by the energy of a crowd met to fight – or, in this case, affirm. The group is varied in age, but there’s an obvious socio-economic homogeneity. These are middle-class buses, carrying a segment of society that has been accused of too much complacency during the past administration. At 11:30, the fleet hits the highway. Conversation dies out after a couple of hours and people listen to headphoned music, read, watch the traffic on the Jersey Turnpike, attempt to sleep. It’s apparent, as the horizon grows dusky with dawn, that more and more buses are joining the parade. The night was drizzly and left the ground damp, but by 7 AM the sun breaks through with the promise of a warm, clear day.
WE’RE DROPPED BY the Washington Monument just before 9 AM. Assembly begins a half-hour later as facilitators send groups to pre-arranged areas on the North Lawn. At 10 a report is broadcast through the public address system that traffic is backed up from RFK Stadium to the freeway, which means as much as a mile of cars and buses. The rally begins, as do most rallies, with speeches, but there’s a passion in this group that gives extra weight to issues raised: and the issues are raised with none of the doubletalk we expect from political rallies.
NARAL executive director Kate Michelman welcomes the group with the advice, “Today you are making history. We will look back and say that April 9, 1989 was the turning point, the day when America’s pro-choice majority took control of its own destiny.”
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| Photo by Gigi Cohen |
Ted Weiss, newly elected from Manhattan to the U.S. House of Representatives, says, “No matter the pretensions of the shrill minority of the so-called Right-to-Life group. The fact is that you are the strong clear voice of the American people, and you’re speaking to your government, and you’re saying loud and clear: no retreat from Roe against Wade, yes to pro-choice, yes to the constitution.”
Says Jim Scheuer, a House member from Westchester County, “I have a dream, just as Martin Luther King had a dream: That our Supreme Court will not retrogress, will not retreat on the human rights that have been guaranteed by the Constitution. I have a dream that the Court will not infringe on the right of young couples to determine the number and spacing of their children.”
THE ALBANY NOW CONTINGENT stands massed behind a purple banner. In front of them is the Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood group. Nearby are groups with banners from Buffalo, Syracuse, Brooklyn; an Ohio faction is to the left. The music and speeches continue to blare from the huge banks of loudspeakers. All of the marching groups carry banners. Most of the signs are parked just now, but individual ones wave from time to time and an occasional ripple of cheers sounds from one group or another. The more impatient set up chants of “We want to march!”
With the first sign of group movement, at about half past noon, all of the banners are thrust aloft, as if a myriad fleet of ships unfurled sails in unison. The advance is sluggish; the chants continue.
On stage, Holly Near is stirring the mood with songs of struggle; she interrupts herself to advise the marchers that there is a delay on the street because of an assembly of anti-abortion protestors. “Don’t talk to them,” she advises. “Just keep on moving.”
Constitution Ave. is packed thick with a slow, steady surge, already halfway to the Capitol. In front of the Department of Commerce is the Right-to-Life line, holding their own highly-colored pickets. Separating them from the marchers are two rows of police, one on horseback, the front line standing akimbo.
Impressive as the waiting crowd looked, there’s a galvanizing energy about a throng in motion. Some carry percussion instruments as simple as kitchen pots and beat them in syncopated rhythm. Others take up snatches of chants, punctuating their cries with aggressive thrusts of their banners. Ahead is the grey bulk of the Capitol, its venerable appearance enhanced by the thousands already clogging its steps.
The sidewalks are overrun with people; they have climbed trees, street signs and statuary to get better views. Close to the Capitol very few of the anti-abortion faction is seen; one lone protestor, his angry sign aloft, is surrounded by a ring of hand-holding pro-choice people gently chanting.
Although a “cemetery of the innocents” was erected by anti-abortion protesters in an area alongside the mall, the park of symbolic white crosses is blocked from view by a wall of portable toilets.
Cheering, chanting, singing, clapping, the marchers now take over the sidewalks. Past 14th Street the mass flows over the curbs to the surprise of the few who are obviously tourists.
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| Photo by Gigi Cohen |
It is reported that by 2 PM over 200,000 people had used the Metro that day, an unprecedented number. The issue of numbers was a hot one. The Park Police estimates a crowd of 300,000, but Eleanor Smeal, Chair of the NOW National Advisory Board, disagrees: “In 1970 in New York City, the women’s rights movement marched 50,000 strong. In 1978 right here in Washington DC for the ERA extension we marched 100,000 strong. In 1986 for reproductive rights, we marched right here in Washington DC 125,000 strong. And today, we are marching over 600,000 strong!”
Her exhortations bring cheers from the assembly, now fanned in front of the Capitol and extended several blocks back. “I want you to feel the strength of this moment. And I want you to make a pledge with all of us together: we are not just going home. We are going home and we are going to make sure that this country stops the harassment of abortion clinics. We are going to stop Operation Rescue. And we are going home to spread the truth about women’s rights and to spread the truth that we are the majority!”
The thicket in the street still surges forward, still trying to get closer. They’re perched on the port-o-lets now, and some have climbed trees. With typical DC entrepreneurship, hot dog and souvenir vendors work the crowd, selling T-shirts and balloons to the same people buying shashes and buttons from rally facilitators.
AS ACTRESS WHOOPI GOLDBERG is introduced, she receives the acclaim of a media celebrity. By the time she finishes a short, blunt statement, there is a more sober quality to the enthusiasm. “It’s very nice to be back in Washington,” she begins, “talking to the government once again, letting them know that there’s something wrong. There’s something very, very wrong. Hangers as an alternative are wrong. These are the alternatives our daughters are facing. Should this happen I’m here to say to Mr. Bush and I’m here to say to the Supreme Court I will make it my job to make sure that never again will a woman have to search out a butcher or a bathroom with a hanger or put her life on the line. Legal or illegal – never again.”
Then she plants the seed for that rallying cry: “I’m here to say to Mr. Bush – and I’m sorry Barbara Bush isn’t here because I know Barbara Bush shares our sentiments and I hope that over the next four years that she is the first lady of the nation, she stands with us in solidarity for pro-choice. I’m also here to pass the message to Mr. Bush and the Supreme Court, because we are always accused of murder – if you overturn this decision, a cry of murder is going to come up in this nation and tumble the Capitol. A cry so loud that you won’t know what hit you, and I predict, that like Pharaoh’s firstborn, your daughters will be the first to go.”
What may have been the single most awe-inspiring moment of the event occurs when Judy Collins gets up to sing. First, unaccompanied, Amazing Grace, then the stirring protest from the beginning of the century, Bread and Roses. And she sings it with the accompanying voices of a half-million people.
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| Gloria Steinem and Rev. Jesse Jackson at the March. Photo by Michael Ackerman |
“We cannot fight for our freedom using the means of death. We cannot fight for life and shoot into the home of Mrs. Norma McCorvey. Let’s be consistent! We can not fight for freedom and life and blow up medical clinics. Let’s be civilized in the struggle to make America better, to make America strong. We fight for the human rights of all human beings.
“Why do I support equal rights for women unequivocally? Because God has affirmed the humanity of women unequivocally. Women are whole human beings and must have whole freedom, whole respect, whole politics and whole self-determination.”
The name of Barbara Bush is mentioned again and again. Molly Yard mentions it. Bella Abzug mentions it. And then that rallying cry starts, hilariously: “Free Barbara Bush!”
(On Monday, the First Lady’s press secretary would offer no comment other than to state with admirable equivocation, “Her position is that this is one of those issues where she will not discuss her views with anyone except, perhaps, her husband.” Barbara Bush is subsequently reported to have called the rally “great – that’s what America is all about.”)
While there is a hope that the numbers affirmed by this rally, the largest ever to assemble in the nation’s capital, will persuade the Supreme Court to maintain the status quo created by the Roe vs. Wade decision, even the sunniest optimists are predicting a state-by-state battle.
Unlike the anti-abortion protestors who appeared at the Capitol in January on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this assembly receives no phone call from the President. Instead, it’s the Vice-President who responds, the following day, with the ho-hum observation that it was just “another Washington march.”
But a mood of triumph prevails. It follows the crowds as they jam the Metro to ride to RFK Stadium, where buses await. The throng jams the escalators, and the people look back at one another and cheer.
On one bus, the effect is capped by a moment of sublime comedy. “I know a lot of you have soda cans,” says the driver, a pleasant, burly man. “And that’s fine. I just wanted to ask you, when you finish with it, if you could crush the can so it won’t roll around on the floor.” The capper is delivered with total sincerity: “And if you ladies have any trouble, just ask one of the guys. They’ll help you.”
It takes four hours to cross Maryland. Nobody complains. As one woman is overheard to say: “This has changed my life. I finally feel a sense that I can share in the heritage of being a woman.”
– Metroland Magazine, 13 April 1989
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