Equal Means Equal launches the Silent Sentinel Challenge
Equal Means Equal officially launched the Silent Sentinel Challenge on Monday November 13th at 10am outside the White House.
On Sunday, Natalie and I were joined in Washington DC for a powerful performance piece at Catharsis on the Mall, commemorating Centennial anniversary of the 1917 Night of Terror. Paula Franchesi created a musical soundscape using the names of the 32 women with bells and gongs that brought the ghosts of our Suffrage Sisters to life. Our EME Equality Warriors created a performance art piece not easily forgotten.
The performers were outstanding, including Patricia Wirth from the Turning Point Suffrage Memorial Project, actresses Suzanne Whang & Ann Mahoney, musicians Patricia Bahia and Ali Handal, as well as comedienne Elizabeth Croydon, EME activists Amanda Krause and Linda Smith who read from the Congressional testimony of the women arrested on that night one hundred years ago.
Matthew Levine created a fanfare for me and Natalie easily fit for a Queen (or two) and we announced the ten-week vigil and encouraged everyone to sign up and spread the word: equalemeansequal.org/
All in all – it was an amazing show and we will have footage for you soon from our fantastic crew, headed by Dominic DeSantis and his wife Michelle Harris. We had multiple cameras and angles on the whole affair and look forward to showing it to you soon!
Special thanks and a big shout out to Thilagavathi Sivaprakasam and her sister, mother and husband in India who worked so hard to re-create historically accurate sashes and banners for us only the week before during a historic flood in Chennai, South India. Thanks to the monumental efforts of Dr. Brigitte Alexander (Bronx Hospital Sexual Assault Response Task Force) who ran around D.C. getting more black coats and hats; then stayed up all night ironing banners and sashes. We are so deeply grateful to everyone on the Equal Means Equal team of supporters and volunteers — without you, we could not have made this Vigil and Action happen.
The following day we were joined by more equality warriors and ERA activists including U.S. Congressional candidate in Virginia’s 7th District, Eileen Bedell, who will help us get ERA ratified in Virginia this session!!
Photo Captions: L Eileen Bedell; R Elizabeth Croydon
Honor our shared herstory and commit to a more equal future for all Americans
by taking a stand for your rights.
Encourage your friends to join you. Let’s build our E.R.A. movement publicly and demand a vote in all unratified states!
Contact Elizabeth Croyden, the EME Silent Sentinel Site Manager, for any details and to get your sashes, banners, coats & hats.
Kamala, Natalie, Elizabeth and the EME Team
