Peoria’s Women’s Rally/March, in conjunction with the national event, is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday Jan. 19 at the Gateway Building Park in downtown Peoria.
The Peoria event will include speeches, music and more.
The mission of Women’s March is to harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.
The rally will include speeches by Jehan Gordon-Booth, D-Peoria, and Sherry Cannon, community organizer. Music will be by Sarah and the Underground.
Information on the national event can be found at womensmarch.com/principles/.
National Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour released this statement in response to recent criticism:
“The Women’s March exists to fight bigotry and discrimination in all their forms — including homophobia and anti-semitism — and to lift up the voices of women who are too often left out. We believe in a world where women from all backgrounds are equally represented in government, media, politics, and everywhere and invite everyone who shares these values to join us.
It’s become clear, amidst this media storm, that our values and our message have — too often — been lost. That loss caused a lot of harm, and a lot pain. We should have been faster and clearer in helping people understand our values and our commitment to fighting anti-semitism. We regret that.
Every member of our movement matters to us — including our incredible Jewish and LGBTQ members. We are deeply sorry for the harm we have caused, but we see you, we love you, and we are fighting with you.
Trying to dismantle oppression, while working within systems of oppression, is hard. We are deeply invested in building better and deeper relationships with the Jewish community. And we’re committed to deepening relationships with any community who has felt left out of this movement. We want to create space where all are welcome.
We are trying to build an intersectional women’s movement. That is a monumental task that is hard, it is messy. We are here for every hard conversation, we are thankful for the folks who have reached out to us directly, and who have spoken up more broadly, and we extend an invitation to everyone who has not yet reached out to do so.”