March 15 , 2010
Women Gather to Celebrate the
Past – and the Future
By Robert
Rogers
More than 200 women, and a handful of children and men, gathered
at Dejean Middle School Saturday to celebrate their progress
– and their future.
“The main message I wanted to give was that we need to “The
main message I wanted to give was that we need to do the work
to know, and believe, and feel in every fiber and every cell
of our body that we are completely good,” said Lakota Harden,
a Native American activist and educator.a Native American activist
and educator. “That we have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Harden was the keynote speaker at the third annual event,
titled “Women in Solidarity: Healing our Beloved Community.”
Mayor Gayle McLaughlin launched the event in 2008. [emphasis
added]
The program featured a host of diverse speakers – from high
school students to homegrown poets to local legend Betty Ried
Soskin, a National Park Ranger and former shipyard worker during
World War II. There were also dance and musical performances.
During the multi-piece musical performance by Las Bomberas
de la Bahia, an Afro-Puerto Rican troupe, audience members
sprung from their seats to dance, at one point forming a line
that shimmied about. McLaughlin and longtime activist Mary
“Peace” Head were among those who whirled around the room.
[emphasis added]
“It was really important to bring the women, and the men who
support them, together in Richmond,” said Nicole Valentino,
a community activist in the mayor’s office.
Richmond’s history is that of a blue-collar town, incorporated
at the outset of the 20th Century when Standard Oil was the
main employer. It later exploded in population with the rise
of ship and munitions manufacturing during WWII.
Women played a major role during the city’s formative period,
as thousands staffed the factories to stem the labor shortage
caused by able-bodied men being deployed overseas during the
Second World War.
The event’s scheduling is aimed to land on the weekend following
International Women’s Day. Women’s Day marks March 8, 1908,
when women workers marched in New York City’s Lower East Side
demanding shorter hours, fair pay and suffrage.
Norma Bautista, a Richmond High School senior, whipped up
the crowd with her message of empowerment, both for women and
for minorities.
“Ain’t no power like the power of our women,” she chanted,
with the crowd echoing the cry.
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