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The March for Our Lives Activists Who Said Never Again


If there’s a defining maxim of our era, it’s that the adults of America seem to have departed the public stage. Political leaders preen and hashtag and hurl insults, and when real life intrudes on the food fights? They double down on the hashtags and insults. In one of the greatest ironies of 2018, teenagers rushed into the void.

Hours after a former student with an AR-15 slaughtered 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a clutch of outspoken student activists flipped the national script on school shootings in America. These students were unwilling to be mediated and mollified by spokespeople or television anchors. The Parkland kids spoke in their own voices. Honed as debate and theater geeks, and savvy about television and social media, these survivors refused to perform the obligatory silent tears and helplessness or find solace in “thoughts and prayers.”

In so doing, these students pulled off an unimagined trifecta in gun policy: They bruised the untouchable gun lobby, they held onto the spotlight for months, and then they morphed into something bigger than themselves. This is what activism looks like.

PHOTO: Samantha Fuentes, Emma González, Jaclyn Corin, Edna Chavez, and Naomi Wadler were photographed by Danielle Levitt in Washington, D.C. Stylist: Lara Backmender, hair: Patti Nelson and Connie Tsang, makeup: Kim Reyes and Soo Park, all at The Artist Agency; production: Joseph Martin. Zara sweater. Old Navy jacket, leggings; Rebecca Minkoff muscle tee. Forever 21 pants. H&M sweatshirt; American Eagle jeans.

Zara sweater, $36, zara.com. Old Navy jacket, $40, leggings, $20, oldnavy .com. Rebecca Minkoff muscle tee, sizes XXS–XXL, $58, rebeccaminkoff.com. Forever 21 pants, $23, forever21.com. H&M sweatshirt, $13, hm.com. American Eagle jeans, sizes, 00XShort–20Long, $40, ae.com.

Following the Parkland murders, it was then 18-year-old Emma González, with a shaved head and bristling fury, who delivered a tearful eulogy, calling B.S. on the National Rifle Association and politicians who take their contributions. She didn’t plan for it to be a rallying cry; she was just pissed off. “Fun fact,” says González. “In the original Google doc that became the ‘We call B.S.’ speech, it was just called ‘speech.’ ” As her words were heard across television networks and social feeds, she became the unfiltered conscience of Never Again. She called out President Trump and members of Congress. She asked neighbors and anyone who had looked the other way to step up. Later, at a CNN town hall, she confronted NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch. And in March, at the student-led March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., among cacophonous speeches and musical performances, González held silence for six minutes and 20 seconds, wordless pain personified and carried across networks in one of the most powerful broadcasts of this era.

Six and a half minutes of silence, the duration of the Parkland shooting spree, before a crowd of as many as 800,000 on Pennsylvania Avenue and millions more watching around the world. The march became one of the largest single-day protests in the history of the nation’s capital. It was engineered by high schoolers.

We’ve gotten a lot of people to feel hopeful again. I’m feeling hopeful again.” —Emma González

González learned public speaking in a ninth-grade writing class. “It was good for me because I learned that all of our emotion, when shared, makes us lighter,” she says. The pain, she says, “is like an inkwell, and the more you spread it around, the less ink you have in you.” About that first speech, she says she remembers just pushing through it. “It’s hard to speak when you’re crying,” she says. “I constantly had to think, Please ignore the fact that I’m crying; I’m being coherent.” Jaclyn Corin, 18, another of the original Parkland activists, was the school’s junior class president. She’d once written a 50-page term paper on gun reform and understood the contours of the national debate. After the shooting, it was Corin who organized classmates to visit the state legislature in Tallahassee, demanding universal background checks and a ban on semiautomatic assault rifles. (To powerful effect: Soon after, Florida passed its first gun-control bill in more than 20 years.) Corin and her colleagues were also quick to intuit that gun violence affects poor communities of color in ways that transcend the upper-middle-class Parkland story, and nimbly helped grow the movement to incorporate students from around the country in what she has described as a “shared stage” at March for Our Lives.

Edna Chavez

Samantha Fuentes

Emma González

Naomi Wadler

Jaclyn Corin

González is honest about how they learned this intersectionality as they went along: “We had a single day,” she says, “an extreme day. And then we realized we had all the attention and we were white.” So the Parkland kids reached out to student gun-control activists across the country who hadn’t gained national traction. Edna Lizbeth Chavez, now 18, an organizer from South Central Los Angeles, had lost her brother Ricardo to gun violence, but nobody paid attention. “I, not only as a brown young indigenous Latinx woman, have come to an understanding that my life, along with my black and brown brothers’ and sisters’ lives, are not being acknowledged as they should be,” she says. She gave parts of her D.C. speech in Spanish. Of her March for Our Lives moment, she says, “We knew it was time to reclaim that power and hold it. No one is free until we all are free.”

“It’s generational; we’re still young enough to know how to be inclusive.”—Naomi Wadler

Just as seamlessly, the D.C. rally made space for then 11-year-old Naomi Wadler from Virginia, the tiny elementary schooler who with a friend organized her school’s event for the National School Walkout in March, adding an extra minute of silence in honor of Courtlin Arrington, an African American girl shot and killed at a school after Parkland. Wadler’s speech, she said that day, was for “the African American girls whose stories don’t make the front page of every national newspaper, whose stories don’t lead on the evening news.” The Parkland students were able to so easily incorporate her message about young black girls and selfworth because, she says, “it’s generational; we are still young enough to know how to be inclusive.”

“We knew it was time to reclaim that power and hold it. No one is free until we all are free.” —Edna Lizabeth Chavez

Indeed, the Never Again movement has recognized the exponential possibilities of sweeping in others. In act three of the Parkland story, the student leaders began a multistate youth-engagement voter-registration initiative called March for Our Lives: Road to Change, a push that lasted all summer, at a time when nobody can garner more end: the end of an America in which children are gunned down in their schools and told that is the price of freedom. When Corin or González steps back (for, say, homework and friends), Delaney Tarr, David Hogg, or Arieyanna Williams of ChicagoStrong steps forward. In a time of meticulous scripting and market research and political groupthink, these kids’ brash honesty and proposed policy solutions cut like sharp metal through the confusion.

The Parkland students each carry scars. Beyond the visceral trauma and the constant death threats that came daily for some in the wake of the tragedy, and claims that they are “crisis actors” being manipulated by adults, they are asked every day to show leadership, even as leaders become vanishingly rare. Samantha Fuentes, who is 18, still has shrapnel behind her right eye and in her legs and arm. She is the poet of the movement. “The world might be cruel,” she says, “but you don’t have to be. Though it might seem our leaders have forgotten the lives lost, and the TV screens are painted with terror, loss, and discouragement, you must not succumb to silence. To remain voiceless is to remain powerless.”

“It might seem our leaders have forgotten the lives lost. You must not succumb to silence. To remain voiceless is to remain powerless.” —Samantha Fuentes

That day and the months since have altered their lives and their futures. González just started college. “Instead of environmental science, I’m studying political science,” she says with a laugh. But the shift is more profound, she knows. “We’ve gotten a lot of people to feel hopeful again,” she says. “I’m feeling hopeful again. We got a lot of people to care.” Historically, America has viewed victims as powerless and two-dimensional. We care but then move on. The Never Again students have given voice to the multitudes of experiences, stories, and traumas of gun victims, and that voice is authentic, raw, and shatteringly effective, and holds our attention. These students are young enough to learn to grow their movement and amplify one another’s voice. They are old enough to perhaps change the world.

Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate.

*Lede Image:*FROM LEFT: REBECCA MINKOFF MUSCLE TEE; OLD NAVY LEGGINGS. REBECCA MINKOFF SWEATSHIRT; AMERICAN EAGLE JEANS. AÉROPOSTALE HOODIE; FOREVER 21 PANTS. REDWOLF HOODIE; AÉROPOSTALE JEANS. REBECCA MINKOFF T-SHIRT; AÉROPOSTALE JEANS. HAIR: CONNIE TSANG & PATTI NELSON; MAKEUP: KIM REYES & SOO PARK: ALL AT T.H.E ARTIST AGENCY; PRODUCTION: JOSEPH MARTIN.



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Here's How the Women Behind the 'Families Belong Together' March Pulled off More Than 700 Protests


On June 30, hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets across all 50 states in “Families Belong Together” protests, a response to the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance policy,” which, before June 20, separated migrant parents from children who crossed the U.S. border.

But, that gathering is just the beginning of the story.

The real story began months ago when thousands of people fled their homes in Central America for the U.S. The caravan walked for days on end in the hopes of making it to the United States. Their mission, at the time, was clear: Seek help and shelter. Historically, migrants fleeing Central America did so for economic reasons, as The Atlantic points out: “Central Americans have tended to migrate for economic reasons. Since the end of the internal armed conflicts in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua—which together displaced almost 2 million people in the 1970s and 1980s—thousands of Central Americans travelled to the U.S. to escape economic misery in their war-torn states.” In recent years, the tide has shifted from poverty to violence.

Shortly after their arrival to the border, the caravan’s plan was quickly thwarted by President Donald Trump and his administration. Rather than let asylum-seekers in to seek due process, the administration instead moved to create a “zero tolerance policy” for all immigrants attempting to cross the border. And that policy, as the world now knows, meant separating children from their families as they entered the United States.

Upon hearing their stories—and instead of sitting idly by as mothers, fathers, and children were ripped apart—a group of women from around the nation were quietly banding together to amplify their voices. Just weeks ago, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D. Wash.); Anna Galland, Executive Director at MoveOn; Jessica Morales Rocketto, Political Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and many more, were calling, texting, emailing and gathering to plan what was to become the “Families Belong Together” March.

As they explained to Glamour in this behind-the-scenes look at planning such a huge demonstration, the woman worked long nights, sacrificing time with their own families to make sure the vulnerable were protected. It appeared their efforts paid off when more than 700 protests took part in cities and towns across the country to protest the zero-tolerance policy.

In their own words, the women behind the march explained to Glamour how their work came together, their motivation and just how far the nation has to go to bring families together and enact lasting immigration reform.

PHOTO: MARK RALSTON

A child holds a poster at a “Families Belong Together” march.

Of course, it all started when the women heard the news that families were being separated at the border. Like many Americans, Galland, along with Rep. Jayapal, learned about the separations by hearing it on the news.

“I couldn’t even trace it back because it feels like it was so shocking,” Galland explained. “I’m a mom. I have three young kids—twins that are going into second grade and a two year old. I heard the reports and I saw those early photos of kids crying and I thought, ‘what would it feel like if my child was ripped out of my arms by the country when I was seeking refuge? What would it feel like?’ It’s unthinkable. And that shock, that visceral horror, put so many of us in motion for the first time.”

For Rep. Jayapal, those images pushed her to action after hearing more than 200 immigrants had been transferred from the Texas border to the federal prison, just south of Seattle.

“I spoke to all 174 women who were in the federal prison being held there. It was absolutely heartbreaking,” she said. “They wept, they couldn’t stop crying when they talked about how their children had been taken away from them. Children as young as one year old. They were talking about the way in which they were deceived and told that their kids were going to be there, that they were just going to go to get a photograph taken, but they came back and their kids were not there.”

Jayapal noted how the women were often subjected to days without water, heat or a clean place to live while in custody. And, perhaps most disturbingly, how they had no way of contacting their children.

“I think that this has been just a horrendous moment for us as a country to come to terms with the fact that we’re putting children in cages and locking up parents in prisons and separating children from their families. I think it’s far beyond politics,” Jayapal said. “It’s just about right and wrong.”

The Congresswoman knew she had to act. And she wasn’t alone.

Families Belong Together Rally In Washington DC Sponsored By MoveOn, National Domestic Workers Alliance, And Hundreds Of Allies

PHOTO: Getty Images

Activists, politicians and actors march in the Families Belong Together Rally In Washington DC, organized by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, MoveOn, National Domestic Workers Alliance, And Hundreds Of Allies.

“We just basically canceled all of our weekend plans and a group of entirely women — I should say majority immigrant women and women of color — hashed out ideas,” Galland noted.

The women, she said, had many questions to answer quickly.

“Could we pull off a small event in Washington a couple of days later? What was possible? What was the energy out there to do it? As organizers, you’re always asking, what is there an appetite for right now,” she said. “By Sunday morning, I was ready to say look, I think the appetite for this is enormous. I think everyone in the country is ready to be heard to say no, we won’t be like this as a country and we’re going to pull off protests and we’re going to have them everywhere.”

For Morales Rocketto, Saturday was just the latest of a long string of marches against family separations.

“June 3, we had 30 events all around the country against the separation. June 14th, we had 78 events around the country and then [Saturday] we had 788,” she explained. “I remember picking the date. I remember thinking, is that enough time. We took the leap of faith.”

U.S.-NEW YORK-IMMIGRATION POLICY-PROTEST

PHOTO: Getty Images

Protest signs at the “Families Belong Together” demonstration on June 30.

“The demand of the march is very simple. We’re calling for families to be reunited. There’s still thousands of children who we know there is not a clear and credible plan to reunite them with their families,” Galland said.

All the women recognize that Trump did bend to the public pressure once, signing an executive order ending family separation. But that, they explained, isn’t nearly enough. The demands and needs for the march evolved after Trump’s declaration that he would not separate families, as more than a couple thousand children are still without their parents.

“It’s a sham executive order because it does not solve the problem or reunite the kids that have already been separated—about 2,700 kids. On top of that, it doesn’t end the zero tolerance policy and it allows for indefinite family imprisonment,” Jayapal said. “That’s not an answer to this. We are calling for an end to the zero tolerance, zero humanity policy and an immediate reuniting of these kids with their parents. And then, allowing the parents to pursue their asylum claims, which they have every right to do under our due process laws, but also under the international convention of refugees.”

Days later, the protest might be over, but the work is far from done. According to Jayapal, it’s key the nation keeps the temperature high on representatives.

“We have to keep the pressure up to say to Republicans in Congress, you need to speak out. You cannot go home. You can’t go to church on Sunday or to synagogue or wherever you go and say that you are doing good things if you allow this to continue in our name. That is not OK,” she said.

Morales Rocketto explained, beyond politicians, it’s time to get companies on record, too.

“We absolutely have to make sure that we are holding companies accountable who are profiting off baby cages and family jails,” she said.

Moreover, Galland noted, the country simply has to keep on pushing forward and showing up for the causes they believe in.

“The reality is, we need to stay in motion, keep showing up. It’s important for us to be seen,” she said. “You have to see other people, physically see them, not just through your social media feed. So keep showing up, keep speaking out both because it affects our politics and also because it will feed your own morale in an era where staying engaged is a political necessity.”



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Families Belong Together March: Watch Incredible Speeches by Diane Guerrero, Kerry Washington, America Ferrera, and More


Tens of thousands gathered across the U.S. for Families Belong Together marches on Saturday, which took place in over 700 locations, including Boston, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. According to CNN, protesters organized around three main tenets: that families separated at the U.S. border be reunited immediately, that the government end family detention, and that President Donald Trump’s administration discontinue its zero-tolerance immigration policy.

A number of high-profile figures—including celebrities, politicians, and activists—took to the stage at various Families Belong Together marches to share their own stories of immigration and calls for change. America Ferrera spoke as a child of Honduran immigrants; Diane Guerrero shared her experience, having been separated from her family as a child; a 12-year-old named Leah opened up about her fears of losing her mom to deportation. Read on for some of the most poignant speeches from various events across the country.

Diane Guerrero in Washington, D.C.

“I am here today as a woman who as a young child was separated from her family,” Guerrero, who’s appeared on Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, told the crowd in Washington, D.C. “I am here today to be painfully honest about the damage these government policies do to human beings, do to kids. Even some 17 years later, I can still remember how it felt when I first cried out for my parents and they couldn’t answer. I have to believe that this an opportunity to rise above the tyranny, the ignorance, the malpractice and believe in change. This is a chance for us to come together as a nation and rise above division and fear. Only then can we stop the separation of families and stop the policies that place children in cages.”

Rep. Maxine Waters in Los Angeles

“How dare you?” Waters asked the Trump administration, in California. “How dare you take the babies from mothers’ arms? How dare you take the children and send them all across the country into so-called detention centers?”

“You are putting them in cages. You are putting them in jails,” the congresswoman continued. “And you think we’re going to stand by and allow you to do that? I don’t think so. Donald Trump, you think you can get away with everything, but you have gone too far when you are trying to break up families in the way that you do.”

Leah in Washington, D.C.

“I am here today because the government is separating and detaining refugee parents and children at the border who are looking for safety,” the 12-year-old said. “Our government also continues to separate U.S. citizen children like me from their parents every day. This is evil. It needs to stop. It makes me sad to know that children can’t be with their parents. I don’t understand why they’re being so mean to us children. Don’t they know how much we love our family? Don’t they have a family too? Why don’t they care about us children?”

“I live with the constant fear of losing my mom to deportation,” she continued. “My mom is strong, beautiful, and brave. She is also a person who taught me how to speak up when I see things that aren’t fair.”

“ICE wants to take away my mom from me. I don’t like to live with this fear,” Leah told the crowd. “It’s scary. I can’t sleep, I can’t study, I am stressed,” she told the crowd.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Boston

“The President’s deeply immoral actions have made it obvious: We need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom, starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality and that works,” Warren said in her speech.

“President Trump seems to think the only way to have immigration rules is rip parents from their families, is to treat rape victims and refugees like terrorists and to put children in cages,” she told her constituents. “This is ugly, this is wrong, and this is not the way to run our country.”

America Ferrera in Washington, D.C.

“I am here not only as a brand new mother, as the proud child of Honduran immigrants and not only an American who sees it as her duty to be here defending justice,” the actress said. “I am here as a human being with a beating heart, who can feel pain, who understands compassion and who can easily imagine what it must feel like to struggle the way families are struggling right now. It is easy to imagine that I would hope that if it was my family being torn apart, if it was my brother being arbitrarily criminalized, if it was my sister who was being banned, that someone would stand up for me and my family.”

She continued: “It is that simple. This fight does not belong to one group of people, one color of people, one race of people, one gender — it belongs to all of us. What makes humans remarkable is our capacity to imagine. We have an imagination, let’s use it.”

Ferrara also read a letter from a grandfather who wants his separated granddaughter, who’s currently being held in Texas, to be able to live with him in California: “I got the impression the investigator thought I didn’t make enough money. I know I don’t make enough money, but I make enough to care for (you). Everything I have I will give to you.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda in Washington, D.C.

The Hamilton creator sang a lullaby for the kids separated from their parents to the crowd.

John Legend and Chrissy Teigen in Los Angeles

“Making America great doesn’t mean building walls to keep people out; it means continuing to embrace the dreams of immigrants who add to our culture, our economy, and our humanity,” Teigen told the crowd while holding her son, Miles, before introducing her husband, John Legend. “Making America greater most definitely doesn’t mean turning asylum-seekers away or kidnapping their kids to turn them away from coming here.”

Legend performed a new song, “Preach,” which he introduced with a speech. He said: “If you’re committed to this kind of love, it means you believe in justice, but it’s not easy. It’s not a passive activity, it requires you opening your eyes to injustice. To see the world through the eyes of another you’ve got to read; you’ve got to travel to other neighborhoods and other parts of the world. You may have to get your hands dirty. You can’t just talk about it or tweet about it. You’ve got to do something.”

Alicia Keys in Washington, D.C.

“My seven-year-old son is here with me today. His name is Egypt. And I couldn’t even imagine not being able to find him,” Keys said. “I couldn’t even imagine being separated from him or scared about how he is being treated, so this is all of our fight, because if it can happen to any child, it can happen to my child and your child and all of our children.”

She continued by reading a letter from a mom who was separated from her child, which said, in part: “I had spent nights without sleep, searching and searching for my son, not knowing where he was, a torture day by day.”

“Our democracy is at stake,” Keys said, after finishing the letter. “Our humanity is at stake. We are out here to save the soul of our nation. We need all the children reunited to their parents. We demand to end the zero humanity policy. We need to save the Supreme Court and we need to vote, because when we vote, we win.”

Kerry Washington in New York City

“This country comes from immigration,” Washington began. “Slavery is a part of my legacy, I understand the legacy of family separation because slavery is a part of my story and so is immigration. My grandparents on my mother’s side came to this country through Ellis Island in the ’30s from the Caribbean, and they came here like every immigrant seeking better opportunities because of a lack of opportunity in their land — running from poverty, running from racism, running from a place where they couldn’t fulfill a dream. I am the fulfillment of their dream. And I will not stand for somebody else turning this country further down the road of racism and disenfranchisement. Enough is enough!”

She also read a letter from a migrant mother, Margarita, who had been separated from her son—he was in Kansas City, Missouri; she in Portland, Oregon: “‘First they tell you that in a few weeks you will have your child, then in a month then in another month, but they never fulfill their promises. With such delay, I have asked myself, what am I doing wrong? Have I not sent everything they asked for me? I want them to at least allow me to see him one day, if for a while. What mother would not want to have her son in her arms. If only for a moment.'”

Watch Washington’s speech below, or read the full transcript here.

[embedded content]

Cher in Los Angeles

“What I really want to try to impress on you is to vote,” the singer said. “You know, I’ve been through 11 Presidents in my life, and I thought I saw everything, but I have never seen anything like this…. When I was little, women were not introduced by their name; they were introduced by their husband’s name—’this is Mrs. John Smith.’ We had no choice over our bodies when I was little… There was no birth control; there was no such thing as your husband raping you, you know? If a husband beat up his wife and the police came, they would just go, ‘Hey buddy, walk around, you know? Walk around the corner, cool off, and come back.’ So what I’m saying to women is get your friends and vote. Because if you don’t vote, you will not recognize this country and you will lose everything that you will just now take for granted, every right that you have. And I’m not being dramatic—well, maybe I am—but I mean it, OK? I’m trying to impress this upon you because you’ve been through a time, you live in time, when women have freedom. I remember a time when women didn’t have freedom, and I don’t want to see this happen to you.”

Related Stories:

All Your Questions About Trump’s Executive Order on Family Separation, Answered

The Most Powerful Signs From the ‘Families Belong Together’ Marches

A Ton of Celebrities Just Showed Up at the Border to Protest the Separation of Migrant Families





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Gloria Allred Calls for the Equal Rights Amendment at Women's March Rally in Utah


As women all over the world marched in support of women’s equality and intersectional issues on Saturday, famed attorney Gloria Allred spoke in Utah to remind us of something pretty harrowing: that women’s rights and equality aren’t guaranteed under the Constitution. Her speech laid out the fact that the Equal Rights Amendment has yet to be ratified; if it were, it would officially eliminate legal distinctions between men and women in terms of employment, divorce, and property—and give equal rights to all citizens in the Constitution regardless of sex.

Allred has made her career by representing women in high-profile sexual harassment cases, including dozens of women who accused Bill Cosby of sexual misconduct as well as Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos, who claims that Donald Trump defamed her after she publicly accused him of sexual assault. Her speech at the Respect Rally at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, was a glimpse at just how powerful and compelling she must be on the stand—and a call to action for those watching in the crowd and at home.

“This entire year has been the winter of our discontent,” she said. “But it is also the year of our awakening to the lack of respect and the denial of our rights. This marks the end of fear being used as a tool to silence women.”

As Allred listed the rights for which women have been marching, she led the crowd in a chant: “Resist, insist, persist, elect.”

PHOTO: Mat Hayward

She then called for Utah to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which was proposed by suffragist leader Alice Paul in 1923 after women’s right to vote was ratified in 1920. In 1972, the ERA was passed by Congress and 35 states ratified it by 1982. Last year, Nevada became the 36th state. However, 38 states are required to introduce the amendment into the Constitution.

“And we demand the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment: The equality of rights shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex,” Allred demanded, quoting the amendment’s text.

The crowd cheered and chanted when Allred asked that Utah become the 37th state to ratify the ERA.

“Let me tell you no one has ever given women their rights,” she said. “We have been fighting for almost 95 years just to put women in the Constitution to protect the rights of our daughters and we are going to have it.”

Watch her speech here:

(P.S. If you want more Allred—and who doesn’t?—a Netflix documentary about her career as a feminist lawyer, Seeing Allred, premiers February 9.)

Related Stories:
–How Phyllis Schlafly’s Death Proves We Need the Equal Rights Amendment Now More Than Ever
–These Emotional Celebrity Speeches From the 2018 Women’s March Will Get You Fired Up
–Roxane Gay: The Women’s March Was Messy and Imperfect, But a Good Start



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Scarlett Johansson Called Out James Franco During Her Women's March Speech


An estimated 4.9 million protestors gathered at 673 marches around the world on Saturday to support equal rights for women, protest against sexual harassment and assault, encourage crowds to vote in this year’s midterm elections, and speak up for the rights of immigrants and Dreamers. As people gathered in the streets of cities like New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, and Los Angeles, celebrities gave rousing speeches and shared their messages of empowerment. Scarlett Johansson stepped up to the podium in Los Angeles to address her own experiences as a young women—and to call out James Franco, who, in opposition to his public support of the Time’s Up movement, has been accused of sexual misconduct.

She started her speech by thanking the women who helped organize the march and the Time’s Up movement before explaining that the reckoning taking place in Hollywood has made her step back and think: “How could a person publicly stand by an organization that helps to provide support for victims of sexual assault while privately preying on people who have no power?”

She paused and looked at the crowd, “I want my pin back, by the way.”

A rep confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that this comment was directed at Franco, who recently won a Golden Globe for his leading role in The Disaster Artist and accepted the award while wearing a Time’s Up pin. During the ceremony he received backlash on Twitter from actress Ally Sheedy, who alluded to Franco’s behavior as the reason she left the entertainment industry. Days later the Los Angeles Times published a story in which five women accused Franco of sexually exploitative behavior.

Johansson went on to reflect on her own experiences as a young actress: “Suddenly I was 19 again and I began to remember all the men who had taken advantage of the fact that I was a young woman who didn’t yet have the tools to say no or understand the value of my own self-worth. I had many relationships, both personal and professional, where the power dynamic was so off that I had to create a narrative that I was the cool girl who could hang in and hang out, and that sometimes meant compromising what felt right for me.”

She encouraged everyone to take responsibility for themselves, for their actions, and for teaching their children by leading by example.

“I have recently introduced a phrase in my life that I would like to share with you: No more pandering,” Johansson said to the crowd. “No more feeling guilty about hurting people’s feelings when something doesn’t feel right for me. I have made a promise to myself to be responsible to myself, that in order to trust my instincts I must first respect them.”

She also told the crowd that she is still working on forgiving herself, “forgiving the girl who felt used and heartbroken and confused and guilty and taken advantage of and weak.”

The actress concluded her speech by saying, “It gives me hope that we are moving towards a place where our sense of equality can truly come from within ourselves.”

Watch Johansson’s full speech in the clips below.

[embedded content]

Related Stories:
–A Year Later, the Women’s March Is More Powerful—and Pertinent—Than Ever
–Donald Trump Trolls Women’s March With a Predictably Selfish Tweet
–None of the Male Winners at the Golden Globes Talked About Time’s Up in Their Speeches





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These Emotional Celebrity Speeches From the 2018 Women's March Will Get You Fired Up


One year after millions of people took to the streets in what became the largest single-day protest in the history of America, the Women’s March returned, reignited by movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp, as well as the fight to protect DACA and immigrants’ rights. And that’s really only the beginning. (The government shut-down and Trump’s recent comments about nations like Haiti provided ample fodder to fuel the crowds’ frustration—and creative sign-making.)

In rallies across the country—from New York City to Atlanta to Los Angeles—celebrities took to podiums to shine a spotlight on topics like sexual harassment and racial justice, as well as rally crowds to vote in the midterm elections later this year. Speakers like Natalie Portman and Halsey made explicit references to their own experiences with sexual harassment and abuse. At Sundance, lawyer Gloria Allred pushed to bring back the fight for an equal rights amendment, saying, “No one has ever given women their rights,” and adding: “We have been fighting for almost 95 years just to put women in the constitution to protect the rights of our daughters and we are going to have it.”

Here are the highlights from some of the most emotional speeches at the various Women’s March rallies.

Viola Davis, Los Angeles
“Every single day, your job as an American citizen is not just to fight for your rights, but it is to fight for the right of every individual that is taking a breath, whose heart is pumping and breathing on this earth. I am speaking today not just for the ‘Me Toos,’ because I was a ‘Me Too,’ but when I raise my hand, I am aware of all the women who are still in silence. The women who are faceless. The women who don’t have the money and don’t have the constitution and who don’t have the confidence and who don’t have the images in our media that gives them a sense of self-worth enough to break their silence that is rooted in the shame of assault and rooted in the stigma of assault.”

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Alyssa Milano, Atlanta
“I really want you guys to look around at each other. I want you to look around and I want you to realize, that this, this right here is what democracy looks like. It doesn’t happen automatically. It demands our action and participation. It challenges us but it also empowers us because at the end of the day, it is us. With [the] two words [‘me too’], we regained our dignity and #MeToo connected us through our pain but it also connected us, and this is very important. It connected us each one of us to our own power and by saying #MeToo, we formed a bond that is unbreakable. We formed a movement that is unstoppable and when time comes time to vote, you’re gonna prove that it’s also unbeatable. Voting is how we prove that our country is so much bigger and kinder than one man that is in the White House. The good news is that in a democracy like ours, the real power is not with him, it is with you. Let me tell you, we’ve got a whole lot more love and hope on our side than they have a–holes.”

Whoopi Goldberg, New York City
“The only way we’re going to make a change is if we commit to change. We have to decide that the people who represent us have to represent all of us. They can’t represent some of us. We’re all human beings and have a right to say, ‘This is how I want to be spoken to. I don’t want to be spoken to like you own me, like you think you can touch me when I say you cannot.’ We are here to say—as women—we’re not taking it anymore. It’s just not going to happen.”

PHOTO: MARK RALSTON/Getty Images

Eva Longoria, Constance Wu, and Natalie Portman at the 2018 Women’s March in Los Angeles.

Natalie Portman, Los Angeles
“I keep hearing a particular gripe about this culture shift, and maybe you have too. Some people have been calling this movement ‘puritanical’ or ‘a return to Victorian values,’ where men can’t behave or speak sexually around dainty, delicate, fragile women. To these people, I want to say: the current system is puritanical. Maybe men can say and do whatever they want, but women cannot. The current system inhibits women from expressing our desires, wants, and needs; from seeking our pleasure. Let me tell you about my own experience. I turned 12 on the set of my first film, The Professional, in which I played a young girl who befriends a hit man and hopes to avenge the murder of her family. […] I was so excited at 13 when the film was released, and my work and my art would have a human response. I excitedly opened my first fan mail to read a rape fantasy that a man had written me. A countdown was started on my local radio show to my 18th birthday, euphemistically the date that I would be legal to sleep with. Movie reviewers talked about my budding breasts in reviews. […] At 13 years old, the message from our culture was clear to me. I felt the need to cover my body and to inhibit my expression and my work in order to send my own message to the world that I’m someone worthy of safety and respect. The response to my expression—from small comments about my body to more threatening, deliberate statements, served to control my behavior through an environment of sexual terrorism. A world in which I could wear whatever I want, say whatever I want, and express a desire however I want—without fearing for my physical safety or reputation—that would be the world in which female desire and sexuality could have its greatest expression and fulfillment. That world we want to build is the opposite of puritanical. So I’d like to propose one way to continue moving this revolution forward. Let’s declare loud and clear: The is what I want. This is what I need. This is what I desire. This is how you can help me achieve pleasure. To people of all genders here with us today, let’s find a space where we mutually, consensually look out for each other’s pleasure, and allow the vast, limitless range of desire to be expressed. Let’s make a revolution of desire.”

Halsey, New York City
The singer has been vocal about her own emotional struggles in the past—including describing a miscarriage she experienced right before a performance—and for the Women’s March she read a raw, intense poem called “Story of Mine” that that nodded to her own experiences with sexual abuse. The poem begins with an account of the rape of a friend of hers and its aftermath: “It’s 2009 and I’m 14 and I’m crying / Not really sure where I am but I’m holding the hand of my best friend Sam / In the waiting room of a Planned Parenthood / The air is sterile and clean, and the walls are that not grey, but green / And the lights are so bright they could burn a whole through the seam of my jeans / My phone is buzzing in the pocket / My mom is asking me if I remembered my keys ’cause she’s closing the door and she needs to lock it / But I can’t tell my mom where I’ve gone / I can’t tell anyone at all / You see, my best friend Sam was raped by a man that we knew ’cause he worked in the after-school program / And he held her down with her textbooks beside her / And he covered her mouth and he came inside her / So now I’m with Sam, at the place with a plan, waiting for the results of a medical exam / And she’s praying she doesn’t need an abortion, she couldn’t afford it / And her parents would, like, totally kill her.”

Halsey then recounts her own history with abuse, saying: “It’s 2002 and my family just moved and the only people I know are my mom’s friend Sue and her son / He’s got a case of Matchbox cars and he says that he’ll teach me to play the guitar if I just keep quiet / And the stairwell beside apartment 1245 will haunt me in my sleep for as long as I am alive / And I’m too young to know why it aches in my thighs, but I must lie, I must lie.” She later describes a 2012 relationship with a man who forced her to perform oral sex: “And he wants to have sex, and I just want to sleep / He says I can’t say no to him / This much I owe to him
He buys my dinner, so I have to blow him / He’s taken to forcing me down on my knees / And I’m confused ’cause he’s hurting me while he says please / And he’s only a man, and these things he just needs / He’s my boyfriend, so why am I filled with unease?”

See Halsey perform the full poem here:

Eva Longoria, Los Angeles
“This march and this movement is far more ambitious in scope and scale and it extends beyond one political actor or even one political party. What we’re calling for is sustainable and systematic change to the experience of women and girls in America. A change from fear and intimidation to respect. From pain and humiliation to safety and dignity. From marginalization to equal pay and representation.” (Source: CNN)

Tessa Thompson, Sundance
“Until we see legislation and policy and a president who respects our humanity…we must continue to gather and tell each other’s stories. […] We are here to say Mr. Trump…your time and power may not yet be up, but our time to stay silent is.” (Source: Variety)

Scarlett Johansson Women's March 2018

PHOTO: MARK RALSTON

Scarlett Johansson and Mila Kunis at the 2018 Women’s March in Los Angeles.

Scarlett Johansson, Los Angeles
“I have recently introduced a phrase in my life that I would like to share with you: no more pandering. No more feeling guilty about hurting someone’s feelings when something doesn’t feel right to me. […] I had many relationships where the power dynamic was so off that I had to create a narrative where I was the cool girl. It allowed me to have the approval that women are conditioned to need. Moving forward means my daughter growing up in a world where she doesn’t have to become a victim of what had become the social norm. […] It gives me hope that we are moving towards a place where our sense of equality can truly come from within ourselves.”

Olivia Munn, Los Angeles
“I’m asking all of you to be the team member for every woman in your life. Refrain from judgment. Be the rock of understanding be the well of empathy. Right here, we all have the power to make sure that our daughters, nieces, granddaughters, great granddaughters, grow up with a mentality, that if you come from one of us, you come from all of us.” (Source: CNN)

Olivia Wilde, Los Angeles
“This is a winnable fight, but we need everyone to work together to make it happen. We must reach across cultural divides and recognize our power as an undivided force. This means white women need to hold up our end of the fight. Not just coming to rallies with likeminded others but reaching deep into our own families and communities deep into the places where women wore t-shirts that read, “Trump can grab my p***y,” and have courageous conversations about what freedom really looks like.” (Source: CNN)

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