Marches for black women and for justice converged in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. “If you can tell somebody’s not getting the type of rights, especially through the law, you need to step outside and help,” one marcher said. News4’s Derrick Ward reports.
Two marches occurred on the streets of Washington, D.C., and met together before continuing to the National Mall on Saturday.
The March for Black Women and the March for Racial Justice started their actions at different times but met up before heading to the U.S. Department of Justice headquarters and the National Mall.
The March for Black Women started at 9 a.m. on Capitol Hill, and the March for Racial Justice started at 10 a.m. at Lincoln Park.
The two groups planed to meet at Lincoln Park about noon and continue together to the Department of Justice.
The March for Black Women takes place 41 years after the first passage of the Hyde Amendment, a policy that denied abortion coverage to women enrolled in Medicaid.
“We are marching to say that black women’s lives matter, that black mamas matter, and to call for an end to systems and policies that deny our dignity, from bans on abortion coverage to mass incarceration,” said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong.
Dorcas Davies, an organizer of the March for Racial Justice, told The Washington Post that organizers began planning the march in June after a Minnesota police officer was acquitted in the killing of Philando Castile, who was shot by police during a traffic stop while his girlfriend used her phone to record the bloody scene and stream it live.
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“The reality is that these are everyday occurrences,” Davies said. “Charlottesville was horrific, but it’s not every day like that in Charlottesville. But for people of color, it’s like this every day.”
March for Racial Justice organizers planned smaller marches in cities across the country on Saturday.
