Global Women’s Strike Actions in Los Angeles
and Around the World Demand
an “End to Twin Terrors of Poverty and War”

Every International Women’s Day since 2000, women in over 60 countries have taken all kinds of grassroots actions as part of the Global Women’s Strike, demanding together that society Invest in Caring Not Killing, and that money squandered on war goes instead to our communities’ needs. The Strike network has grown stronger over the past five years, especially in countries of the global South, and women, and increasingly men, now take Strike action throughout the year. This year the Strike also demanded “A Living Wage for All Our Work and Pay Equity in the Global Market.” Actions in the US this month took place in a number of communities including in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz, California.

On Thursday afternoon, March 10, a Global Women’s Strike action in Los Angeles brought together over 300 women and men, mostly young and mostly people of color -- including former prisoners and family members of prisoners campaigning for justice; campaigners against the three strikes law and against the death penalty; family members of fallen U.S. soldiers; Black people and Latino(a)s; Muslim and Jewish people; immigrants and Native Americans; hiphop artists and Catholic nuns; neighborhood anti-war vigilers and veterans; grandmothers and anarchists; gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered activists; mothers and fathers with children on their shoulders. All converged on the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles for a rally demanding welfare and other payment for caring work, an end to the criminalization of survival (including locking up women for crimes of poverty), and money for mothers and communities, not for war. Placards said no to US war, occupation, destabilization, rape and other torture, from Iraq to Haiti to Venezuela or anywhere.

From the Federal Building, the demonstrators, led by a colorful decorated truck for elders and children and by young women loudly chanting, Aztec dancers, and mothers with their children in strollers, marched behind a banner saying “End the Twin Terrors of Poverty and War” to the Twin Towers jail, as rush-hour commuters honked, waved and cheered their support. At the Twin Towers Jail, during a second rally to “Strike Against the Racist and Sexist Criminal ‘Injustice’ System and the Criminalization of Poverty,” the Global Women’s Strike played a rousing recorded message of support from Mumia Abu Jamal, activist-journalist and death-row inmate who applauds the Strike’s theme, “Invest in Caring Not Killing” - “What a concept!” he says. The Strike issued a women’s award to Mumia, accepted for him by Fidel Rodriguez of Divine Forces Radio on KPFK 90.7FM and Bertha Rocha, the activist aunt of a young Latino man given two life sentences at the age of 16 for crimes he didn’t commit.

Speakers at Thursday’s event included Margaret Prescod, co-coordinator of the Global Women’s Strike in the U.S. and KPFK host, on her recent visit with imprisoned Prime Minister Yvon Neptune of Haiti; Susan Burton, founder and director of A New Way of Life, on how women released from incarceration are turned out into the streets with no resources; Ruth Gilmore of Critical Resistance-LA: Celes King IV, LA Vice Chair of the Congress of Racial Equality, on efforts to save King/Drew Hospital; Cindy Sheehan, co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, whose soldier son was killed in action in Iraq; US Air Force veteran April Fitzsimmons, on sexual abuse in the military and its effect on women; Lily la Torre, of Racimos de Ungurahui, on how indigenous tribes are defending the Peruvian rainforest from the logging industry; and Juana Nicolas, of the Domestic Workers Organizing and Advocacy Project, on fighting workplace abuse and “la migra” violence. Performers included Haitian rapper J.G. and LA-based rapper Will B as well as singers Kerry Getz and Danny Peck and the satirical musical group, “Billionaires for Bush.” Members of Payday, a network of men working with the Global Women’s Strike, and in support of refuseniks from around the world (see Payday’s website, www.refusingtokill.net), provided technical and other kinds of support.

Said Margaret Prescod of the spirited crowd, which represented such a broad range of races, ages, communities, and concerns, “This is an unprecedented coming together for Los Angeles. When we arrived at Twin Towers Jail, prisoners knew we were there and waved to the crowd as we demanded ’No more jails,’ ’No three strikes,’ ’Money for mothers and communities, not Guantànamos and war.’ ”

The Southern California event was organized by the multiracial Global Women’s Strike/LA and co-sponsored by the Action Resource Center, Alexandria House, A New Way of Life, ANSWER Coalition, Critical Resistance L.A., East Side Café, El Sereno Neighbors for Peace and Justice, IAC, No New Jails Coalition, Office of the Americas, Payday, San Gabriel Valley Neighbors for Peace and Justice, and endorsed by many more. KPFK Pacifica Radio 90.7FM was the media sponsor. For information on these and other actions around the world, contact 323-292-7405 and go to www.globalwomenstrike.net.

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