A year after people gathered for women's marches around the country, a local group is hoping to fuel another year of activism with the second annual Twin Ports Women's March.
"All around the country, and especially here in Duluth, we saw an insurge of new people who wanted to be activists after the Women's March and we really believe that this will happen again this year - so capping off last year, but also giving us a precursor for the year to come," said Abigail Mlinar, founder of the Feminist Action Collective in Duluth, which is organizing the march.
The Twin Ports Women's March will begin with a speech at 11 a.m. next Saturday, Jan. 20 at the Building for Women, 32 E. First St. in Duluth. Marchers will then walk to City Hall, where a program with about a half-dozen speakers will take place. Volunteers appointed as "peace marshals" will ensure that the event stays family friendly and peaceful, Mlinar said. She added that she's proud of the wide array of more than 50 local organizations that are sponsoring the event.
Prior to the march, a "coffee with candidates" meeting will be held in the Building for Women's basement, allowing people to talk with candidates and elected officials.
The motto for this year's Duluth march is, "We persisted. We resisted. Now we're insisting," Mlinar said.
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"We're continuing the momentum that the last year saw for women and gender equity. We're going to grow the support of larger community organizations and continue showing that gender equity is a cause that anybody should and can care about because women are 50 percent of the population and they are across all intersections of feminism, across all political ideologies," she said.
In January 2017, hundreds of people walked in the Women's March in Duluth in conjunction with the Women's March on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
In announcing this year's event, the Feminist Action Collective noted that the 2017 marches were in response to President Donald Trump's statements against women.
"That incredible solidarity ignited a movement. It burned through the year, evident in incredible local and national election upsets, the #metoo movement forcing transformative discussion in every corner of society and an unprecedented number of women running for political office in the 2018 midterm elections," the Feminist Action Collective wrote in a statement. "There is a palpable new awareness in the world that women are united, impassioned and working in every corner of society to fight regressive social and environmental policies. We don't just want to stop bad policy - we want to make progress."
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For more information, visit feministactioncollective.org or the Twin Ports Women's March 2018 Facebook page.
