Marching to the beat of human, women's rights
(Photo by MARY MALONE) Pat Wentworth, left, hugs Gabriel Burns, right, a Sandpoint High School student who is the president of the high school chapter of the the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force. Burns was one of the keynote speakers for the community march Saturday and Wentworth was the emcee for the event, which was organized by the Grassroots Community March Committee.
(Photo by MARY MALONE) Hundreds packed the Panida Saturday to listen to speakers from the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force, 350sandpoint.org, PFLAG and more before heading outside to join in the community march organized by the Grassroots Community March Committee.
(Photo by MARY MALONE) Those who joined Saturday's community march were all smiles, even in the driving snow, as they made their way from the Panida Theater to City Beach.
(Photo by MARY MALONE) Men and women, young and young at heart, joined the estimated 800 to 1,000 people who walked in the snow from the Panida to City Beach Saturday during the community march in Sandpoint.
(Photo by MARY MALONE) Saturday's community march began with several speakers and a packed house at the Panida Theater. Jean Gerth, left, from 350sandpoint.org was joined on stage by several others from local organizations to share their mission of supporting things like human rights and the environment.
(Photo by MARY MALONE) An estimated 800 to 1,000 people took part in Saturday's community march to City Beach, where people took photos with Sandpoint's Statue of Liberty — or at least with the statue in the background.
SANDPOINT — After naming her five daughters and each of her 24 granddaughters, Mary Faux told the hundreds who packed the Panida they are the reason she, as a woman in her 80s, took part in Saturday's "Community March in Sandpoint."
"I want them to have clean water, I want them to have a clean environment, I want them to have equal pay for equal work, I want them to have decent health insurance, and most of all, the right to love whomever they choose," Faux said.
On the other end of the age spectrum, Gabriel Burns, a Sandpoint High School student and president of the high school chapter of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force, explained to the crowd how she got involved in human rights when she was 12 years old. At that time, her class was instructed to write an essay on a topic of their choosing, so she wrote one on the "negative impact of media on women's body image."
"I began to see how economic incentives, sexism, racism, media bias all played into this one topic and I was fascinated, but also utterly disgusted," Burns said. "... There is pain in the world. The pain that we all feel, that brings us here today, cannot be in vain."
The energy in the Panida Theater Saturday was upbeat and positive as speeches were made by Faux, Burns, Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad, Jeff Bohnhof from PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), sisters Jean and Nancy Gerth of 350sandpoint.org and Lynn Bridges of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force. Before the crowd exited the building to begin the march, Kate McAlister delivered a message of injustice against women as she read "One Billion Will Rise for Justice," from the "Vagina Monologues."
The community march was organized by the Grassroots Community March Committee as a positive statement about what people in the region think is important and what they are willing to work for. According to event organizers, it was a march for protection of the environment, human rights, social injustice and building a welcoming and charitable community. Seventeen local organizations set out sign-up sheets in the Panida for people to get involved and all had volunteers sign up.
With the Panida full, an estimated 100 to 200 people stood outside for over an hour waiting for the march to begin. By the end of the event, an estimated 800 to 1,000 people joined the local march, part of a much larger worldwide movement as cities across the country held sister marches in collaboration with the main event in Washington, D.C. — the "Women's March on Washington."
"I am in that group of people who think we are going to see a scaling back of the human rights and social justice and economic justice movement that we had in the last decade or so, and I find that very concerning," said Jessica Chilcott of Sagle as she marched toward City Beach. "You have to remind people that they are not alone, that they have a voice, and that when they speak up they won't be speaking up by themselves."
Sharon Conway of Sandpoint said her biggest concern is civil rights.
"As a woman, as a mother of three boys, I can't allow them to think that women don't matter or that people who love differently should be outcasts — just to love people for who they are, no matter what," Conway said.
The marchers made their way through the falling snow to City Beach and Sandpoint's Statue of Liberty where the crowd gathered to hear Michael Moran read "The New Colossus," the poem engraved on a plaque at the base of the nation's Statue of Liberty in New York. The event concluded with participants singing "America the Beautiful," with a call for all to get involved.
During his opening address, Rognstad said the march was an important event as Sandpoint stood in solidarity with other cities across the state, the nation and the world. He said the event represented people with different political ideologies, different religious affiliations, a diversity of racial and ethnic backgrounds and gender identities.
"But we are all here for one reason, because we believe that women's rights are human rights," Rognstad said. "We stand in solidarity with the 'Women's March on Washington' and in its vision that together in the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity and justice who have come before us, we join in all our diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore."