On Jan. 21, a group from Temple Isaiah of Great Neck joined the 400,000 mostly women who marched in New York City, and the well over 1,000,000 who marched across the United States and around the world.
Undoubtedly, many other Great Neck residents marched as well.
The numbers in every venue so exceeded the projections that the participants overflowed the routes, causing the removal of barriers allowing the flow of people to expand.
Why did we join this march?
Each of us may have had a primary reason to join, but we all felt a responsibility to exercise freedom of speech and the right to “…petition the government for a redress of grievances,” rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Marches are patriotic as we ask our government to focus on the issues important to our society.
At the march, we viewed the sea of women and felt that this is what democracy looks like!
Individually, here are some of the reasons we marched:
“As a woman, mother and grandmother of girls, and an attorney, my fears and grievances have an urgency as the senate is voting on cabinet appointments and soon a Supreme Court Justice nominee. Trump has stated that it will be someone opposed to Roe v. Wade, which has been settled law despite many challenges for 44 years, and the overthrow of which would plunge women back into the ‘70s and earlier when they could not make decisions about their own reproductive choices.”
“As a physician, I am extremely concerned about the efforts to repeal the ACA (Obamacare). This will affect up to 30 million people in the U.S., including nearly a million in New York State alone!
For many of our neighbors this will be a life or death action as their pre-existing conditions or financial status would prevent them from getting any health insurance.
By the way, this won’t only affect them, it will affect us all as hospital ERs are once again overrun with non-emergent cases.”
“All of the developed countries in the world have listened to the scientific data and concluded unanimously that climate change is not only real, but largely man made and happening faster than anticipated. They, including the US have signed a treaty committing to take actions to reverse dangerous practices, yet Trump appoints a climate change denier to his cabinet.”
“As a teacher, I am very troubled by the choice of Betsy DeVos to run the Department of Education. Her statements during the hearings displayed colossal ignorance and insensitivity. Her actions could endanger the future of our children and our country and allow us to fall behind the levels of the rest of the world.”
“As a woman with a lifelong disability, the intended changes in access to health care and medicare frighten me terribly. I rely on these programs to help me survive. These reductions or worse will affect seniors especially those on fixed incomes.”
“As an involved citizen, I march to combat the feelings of impotence as everything I value becomes endangered-not only a woman’s right to choose, but even the threats against a free press.”
We marched, we carried signs, we raised our voices.
It was empowering.
We can only hope that the leaders of our country listened.
The marches were only a first step.
Join us!
Shelley Sherman
Great Neck
