Together We Rise

Behind the Scenes at the Protest Heard Around the World

The Women's March Organizers, Condé Nast

• Publisher: Dey Street Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780062843449
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Advocacy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In celebration of the one-year anniversary of Women's March, this gorgeously designed full-color book offers an unprecedented, front-row seat to one of the most galvanizing movements in American history, with exclusive interviews with Women's March organizers, never-before-seen photographs, and essays by feminist activists.

On January 21, 2017, the day after Donald J. Trump's inauguration, more than three million marchers of all ages and walks of life took to the streets as part of the largest protest in American history. In red states and blue states, in small towns and major urban centers, from Boise to Boston, Bangkok to Buenos Aires, people from eighty-two countries—on all seven continents—rose up in solidarity to voice a common message: Hear our voice.

It became the largest global protest in modern history.

Compiled by Women's March organizers, in partnership with Condé Nast and Glamour magazine Editor in Chief Cindi Leive, Together We Rise—published for the one-year anniversary of the event—is the complete chronicle of this remarkable uprising. For the first time, Women's March organizers—including Bob Bland, Cassady Fendlay, Sarah Sophie Flicker, Janaye Ingram, Tamika Mallory, Paola Mendoza, Carmen Perez, and Linda Sarsour —tell their personal stories and reflect on their collective journey in an oral history written by Jamia Wilson, writer, activist and director of The Feminist Press. They provide an inside look at how the idea for the event originated, how it was organized, how it became a global movement that surpassed their wildest expectations, and how they are sustaining and building on the widespread outrage, passion, and determination that sparked it.

Together We Rise interweaves their stories with "Voices from the March"—recollections from real women who were there, across the world—plus exclusive images by top photographers, and 20 short, thought-provoking essays by esteemed writers, celebrities and artists including Rowan Blanchard, Senator Tammy Duckworth, America Ferrera, Roxane Gay, Ilana Glazer, Ashley Judd, Valarie Kaur, David Remnick, Yara Shahidi, Jill Soloway, Jia Tolentino, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and Elaine Welteroth. An inspirational call to action that reminds us that together, ordinary people can make a difference, Together We Rise is an unprecedented look at a day that made history—and the beginning of a resistance movement to reclaim our future.

BEFORE

Washington, D.C.

Matthew Pillsbury

NOV 8–9, 2016

ELECTION NIGHT AND ITS AFTERMATH

“I THINK WE SHOULD MARCH.” ON THE NIGHT OF NOVEMBER 8, 2016, WHILE PROCESSING THE OUTCOME OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE, TERESA SHOOK, A RETIRED ATTORNEY IN HAWAII, POSTED THOSE FIVE SIMPLE WORDS ON A PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP PAGE BEFORE SHE WENT TO BED. BY THE TIME SHE AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING, 10,000 WOMEN HAD HEEDED HER CALL TO ACTION, SIGNING ON TO MARCH. AND AROUND THE COUNTRY, OTHER WOMEN WERE PLOTTING.

TERESA SHOOK, Founder, Women’s March At first I was depressed and felt hopeless. I jumped on Facebook hoping to find some women to commiserate with—to help make sense of what had happened. I got on a thread where women were feeling the same, and the more they expressed hopelessness, the more I felt that old fiery urge to “do something.” So I commented that “we should march.” One woman in that thread said, “I’m in,” and that was all I needed to hear.

I jumped off the Facebook page and went to make a private event. Before I went to bed that night, there were about 40 women attending and another 40 or so who had indicated that they were interested. When I woke up the next day, there were over 10,000 women attending and another 10,000 women interested. I started saying “Oh my God, oh my God” to myself over and over, trying to take it all in. Then I got busy bringing more women on board.

BOB BLAND, Women’s March Cochair and National Organizer On election night my daughter came in before her bedtime, at like eight o’clock, and said, “Mama, tell Hillary Clinton I’m sorry.”

And I was like, “Oh, baby, why? The night’s young! There’s still a lot of states to come in.”

She said, “Yeah, but Hillary Clinton has three—and Donald Trump has twenty-one.” Because, see, even though she’s six and a half, she can at least read the numbers. I was the one in denial. She knew. She knew exactly what was happening, and I couldn’t . . . you know. . . .

Just like everyone else, by 2 A.M. I’m sitting there with my mouth agape, staring at a now-empty screen and thinking, What is my life going to be now, and what am I going to do for my family? I was pregnant at the time and I thought, Oh my God, I’m about to bring another girl into a world where we’ve just demonstrated that the world’s even more sexist than we had imagined. And the most hateful person, the least responsible person, the one that reminds me so much of the people I’m battling at work in the manufacturing world of the fashion industry in New York City right now—someone like that is actually going to be the president of the United States.

So, at this point, I had a few thousand followers in this Facebook group of “nasty women,” and they all came to me online the morning after the election saying, “What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” And it just hit me. I was like, Well, we should march on Washington, D.C., on inauguration weekend. And I put it out there.

Within two hours, thanks to the magic of the Internet, my friend in Philadelphia who’s also a sustainable-fashion designer called me, and she was like, “Hey, you’ll never guess. There’s somebody else who is planning a march.”

At this time, Teresa’s page was called the Million Woman March, and I saw that she had a few thousand more people who said they were going than I did, so I connected with her, and I said, “Hey, Teresa, I just wanted to share with you that I’m also planning a march on Washington that same weekend. Why don’t we combine forces?” And between her and some of the other organizers, we were able to merge the pages.

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“THE NEXT 1,459 DAYS OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WILL BE 1,459 DAYS OF RESISTANCE.”

ANGELA DAVIS, ACTIVIST AND WRITER

ONSTAGE IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

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Photographer Kisha Bari was embedded with the march organizers throughout their planning. Here, a meeting in The Gathering for Justice offices.

Kisha Bari

CARMEN PEREZ, Cochair and National Organizer Teresa didn’t feel she had the capacity to organize a march of that caliber. So she gave her blessing to Bob. They consolidated the two events. And then Vanessa Wruble came aboard and in turn reached out to Michael Skolnik, the chair of the board of the nonprofit The Gathering for Justice, to find someone who could organize a march. And Michael said, “I know exactly who you need: Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory can organize in their sleep.”

CASSADY FENDLAY, Director of Communications and National Organizer It’s kind of beautiful how Teresa birthed this idea into the world and let it go. She gave us this idea and didn’t want to hold it and control it.

BREANNE BUTLER, Global Director and National Organizer I got on Facebook and saw a post from a mutual friend, Bob Bland. We had tons of friends in common through the fashion industry, so I messaged her and asked what I could do to help. She said, “I saw you used to work at Facebook. Can you help make Facebook pages for all the states to mobilize to get to D.C.?” This was funny because I was actually working as the executive pastry chef at Facebook New York! But at that point it didn’t matter. She added me as a host of the event, which led to a 32-hour love affair with my computer screen. I thought we were going to break Facebook.

VANESSA WRUBLE, Director of Operations and National Organizer The decision to hold the march in January emerged out of Facebook chatter, but what tipped it to the twenty-first, the day after the inauguration, was that it was a Saturday; and therefore working people would be more able to attend, and kids would be more able to join, since they didn’t have school. It also shifted the feeling of what we were doing out there—we were not going out to shout in the face of would-be inauguration goers and clash with them. We were there to stand calmly together, speaking as one voice.

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MY MARCH

“I DON’T THINK I EVER WOULD HAVE CALLED MYSELF AN ACTIVIST.”

I didn’t think I would go to the Women’s March at all—not when I first heard about it. I’m 23 and new to the “real world.” I studied feminism as an undergraduate at Cornell, so I was the one that friends texted all night on November 8 as the election results came in: “What do we do?” But I had nothing to offer them. I don’t think I ever would have called myself an activist.

By the time January came around I was dejected—this presidency would cast a shadow over the start of my adult life as a woman, working and supporting myself in the same city where Trump came into his fame. In my mind, this election would ruin the lives of people of color, the poor, LGBTQIA+ folk, immigrants, and refugees. But up until the week of the march, I didn’t think I would go. I just couldn’t. I was still too broken up.

Then, the week of the march, my dad, a 66-year-old white man, came to me and told me I should go—he said I couldn’t miss out on this piece of history.

My father came of age during the Vietnam War; he was teargassed during the Hard Hat Riot. He insisted that I go to D.C. and said he’d drive me down himself.

As we drove together, Dad told me about his own experiences with political activism, about what it had changed, and about feeling that his convictions mattered so much that he’d put his body on the line. I couldn’t help but feel that he was passing on a torch of some kind to me. Like the responsibility for social change was being transferred from his baby boomer generation to mine, the millennials, at that moment. Now I know I won’t let myself or my future children—if I have any—sit out these moments. I know how necessary it is to show up.

JAMIE ZABINSKY

23, New York City, documentary film outreach coordinator; marched in Washington, D.C.

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GINNY SUSS, Producer and National Organizer Vanessa told me there were rumblings of a mass women’s march happening on the Internet. She was finding out details, but she asked if I wanted to be involved—we had worked together at OkayAfrica, a media company. I jumped at the chance. I had been devastated by 45’s win. It was like looking into Dante’s Inferno and watching the devils falling into the fiery pit.

I was foreseeing having this fascist, racist, reality-star idiot ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction by Jamia Wilson
• Before
• The March
• After
• Now What?
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments
• Credits
• Copyright
• About the Publisher