Exactly one month before Election Day, area women and their allies gathered in Jackman Park on Saturday, to rally for freedom.
The Glenview Women’s March, gathered local community members, joining in the National Day of Action and Women’s Wave Women’s March, taking place all across the country on Oct. 8.
“The Women’s Wave” rally was organized to build momentum for the 2022 midterms and highlight the freedoms that are at stake on the Nov. 8 ballot,” rally co-organizer and local activist, Cathy Wilson said.
Women and activists across the country have never felt more urgency to turn up and speak out against the political forces that are attacking a woman’s freedom to make life-changing decisions about her own body, Wilson says.
“We are also speaking out against efforts to ban books and censor speech, suppress the right to vote, interfere with vote counting and election certification, erase marriage equality, deny self-identification, deny climate change, and halt gun safety reform, and the list goes on,” Wilson said.
Victoria Weiley of Evanston participated in Saturday’s event.
“I lived through the women’s march in the 70s and I’m here again today because too many of our civil liberties have been lost,” Weiley said.
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Organizers say, a wide range of speakers were invited to address important issues and area activist groups also participated by setting up tables on site.
The rally began with a repetitive chant from the crowd, “my body my choice.”
Speakers included, Dr. Halleh Akbarnia, an emergency medicine physician at the Advocate Condell Medical Center and fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, who said that no one should ever get in the way of the sacred physician/patient relationship, and that women deserve the privacy, dignity and respect that that oath entails.
“Abortion is essential health care, and we are one judge away from losing our right to abortion, right here in Illinois,” Akbarnia said.
State Sen. Laura Fine also addressed the crowd, as did the president of the Glenview Public Library Board, Ruth Rosenblum, Northfield Township Clerk and representative of Mom’s Demand Action, Caryn Fliegler, Glenbrook South High School students, Sara Kahn and Marlene Lee, vice president of Glenview Pride, Audry Farber, and former Chair of the Glenview Environment and Natural Resources Commission, Henrietta Saunders.
Co-organizer and Glenbrook South High School senior, Sara Kahn, urged the crowd to advocate for women at the polls on Nov. 8.
Kahn pictured here with Illinois State Senator, Laura Fine during Saturday’s rally.
Kahn said that since she will not turn 18 until next year, she cannot vote this November.
Kahn says she is concerned about the future.
“This rally is about gathering those who are passionate about fighting the extreme positions in our country that are an assault on our liberties and democratic institutions,” Kahn said.
“My sisters, all you have to do is vote,” Kahn said.
Gina Grillo is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.