Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press
Don’t be surprised that I love March, Women’s History Month. I was in the first Women’s Liberation March down Manhattan’s 5th Ave. in 1970. Betty Friedan led the march with NYC providing a permit for using just one lane of traffic. The 50,000 turnout was massive and Betty led us into the full width of 5th Avenue, startling law enforcement. I remember tripping over traffic cones meant as barricades. Unfortunately, some barricades seem to last forever.
We waited 17 years for Congress to officially proclaimed March as Women’s History Month in 1987. But the wait has been much longer. It was 1909 when the first International Women’s Day march was held by women labor organizers in NYC advocating for sweatshop workers: female garment and textile workers. Because the unions were perceived as socialist, it took more than half a century for the United Nations to proclaim March 8 the official International Women’s Day. With the UN proclamation in 1975, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women in California turned the day into a whole week. It took another 5 years before President Carter signed the 1980 proclamation for Women’s History Week. And it was another 7 years before Congress approved Women’s History Month.
By the first annual Women’s History Month in 1987, there were plenty of folks to honor with its theme:“Generations of Courage, Compassion, and Conviction”. We celebrated women’s movement icons of earlier generations like Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sojourner Truth. As the annual celebration progressed, each year had a different them like the one in 2001: “Celebrating Women of Courage and Vision”. We honored more recent leaders of the movement like Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem, who some say is the world’s most famous Women’s Liberation Movement activist.
When I got an email last week inviting me to a Gloria discussion between Gloria Steinem and Gloria Feldt, another feminist pioneer, how could I resist? The 2 Glorias were obviously long time friends and discussed how the controversy surrounding the human embryo goes back 30 years. Today’s intense debate over the moral and legal status of the human embryo and its political implications are not new. They also talked about the long-time efforts to grow the number of women in powerful positions, both corporate and political. There’s been improvement, but the percentage of women in power remains modest, reminding me of that quote, “everything old is new again”.
Inspired to do more research on Women’s History Month, I looked up this year’s theme and was astounded by what I discovered. It turns out that the 2024 Women’s History Month’s theme celebrates “Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.” I smiled all day, celebrating how history and the present came together.
I didn’t know this when I planned a panel discussion for this year’s Women’s History Month. Held yesterday on March 7, both virtually and in-person, at East Ridge Local Coffee, the event featured Chattanooga women who serve our diverse communities: Lulu Copeland (Consultant at Regional Economic & Workforce Development), Gail Dawson (Director of Diversity & Inclusion at Rollins College of Business /UTC), Vanessa Jackson (Program Specialist /City of Chattanooga Office of Multicultural Affairs), and Teletha McJunkin (Coordinator of international, multicultural, multi-lingual teams).
The event was officially called Women GroundBreakers Storytelling. It was a project that emerged from the Women’s Council on Diversity that I founded more than 20 years ago. Which just goes to show that history and the present converge to make a difference. And coming together has always been a force for change. So let’s celebrate…Happy International Women’s Day!
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