Clik here to view.
On a summer-like Saturday, a fired-up crowd of more than 200 people chanted, “This is what Democracy looks like!” “How great is America now?” and loudest of all, “We are NOT NOT going back!”
The crowd outside Fort Bragg Town Hall was exercising their free speech rights during a global day that originated during the administration of the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, to celebrate the achievements of women.
Donald Trump, the 47th president, was the target on Saturday, a day that saw International Women’s Day-linked protests in every state.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Inside Town Hall, an entirely different event, which also attracted a big crowd, was underway. The Fort Bragg Chapter of the Native Daughters of the Golden West, an old-style lodge that requires its members to be born in the Golden State, held an event that featured state history scavenger hunts for kids, prizes and other fun. The Fort Bragg chapter has 65 members, including several men. (The local chapter of the Native Sons of the Golden West closed in the 1930s.)
International Women’s Day takes on many guises
For more than a century, the annual International Women’s Day celebration in the United States has energized the women’s suffrage movement, anti-war movements from World War I on and the feminist movement. Each year, International Women’s Day, now an official event on the United Nations calendar, comes with a theme—this year’s is “Accelerate Action.” The protests are only one of many efforts across the world to celebrate the role of women and highlight the continued abuse and inequality women face. It’s a United Nations holiday and also a holiday in many countries but not in the USA.
Clik here to view.
Rixanne Wehren of Albion first participated in a protest in 1964 during the Civil Rights movement. For five decades, she has been attending protests, speaking her mind and sometimes carrying a sign. She’s participated in protests against the Vietnam war and to protect redwood forest clearcutting, among many others. Most historians say those protests forced major change.
On Saturday, the 77-year-old activist showed up to join thousands of protesters across the nation and world for the event. About 80 percent of the protesters outside Fort Bragg Town Hall were women, about the same ratio as the history event inside.
“It’s an opportunity to voice our resistance to the Trump program for reorganizing the US government, and that includes eliminating a lot of the services for regular Americans, women and vulnerable people,” Wehren said. “We want to let everyone know that there are people in every little town and every big town in California and around the United States who are supporting the resistance to dismantling the social safety net.”
Will Saturday’s protest make enough noise to accomplish real change? Is this president likely to listen to critics?
Wehren thought a minute before she answered. “What I heard was that the rationale for doing public protests is to support the individuals within the bureaucracy who support all of us with services vital to our lives. We want to support them and the safety net for them that has done so much good for so long.”
Clik here to view.
She said the massive cuts underway threaten rural areas, veterans, social security offices and health agencies.
“We are living through a frightening time for vulnerable people and for people whose very lives depend on these services being cut.”
Wehren said she also came out Saturday to send the message that cutting care to women and children, including prenatal care and access to abortion, is not acceptable. “This administration has illegitimized abortion services and family planning, which is being carried forward by the red states,” Wehren said. She said protesters feel a huge portion of taxpayers of the United States is being completely ignored through a process that is not at all democratic.
Clik here to view.
“We are also out here to say that we do support DEI measures, and our shock that DEI has been demonized as being the cause of all problems. We feel that the DEI was a needed effort to even up some of the past injustices. We need DEI to strengthen our society.”
The first “official” International Women’s Day celebration was in 1911 during which over a million people participated around the world. It has featured riots, such as in Turkey in 2023. In Europe, there was a long tradition of bringing women flowers on International Women’s Day, an effort some say missed the point entirely.
Learn more about International Women’s Day from the Associated Press here.
This story originally appeared in The Mendocino Voice.
The post International Women’s Day in Fort Bragg generates protests and history appeared first on Local News Matters.