The Women's Wave Rocked the Vote!

Abigail Spanberger giving her victory speech 

after winning election to Congress from Virginia.

           

     Tuesday was a historic day! More women ran for office in 2018 than ever before and more women won! Voters were determined more than ever to elect feminists to positions of leadership. We have ushered in the most diverse Congress in history with huge wins for women, minorities and LGBTQ. Thank you to all who canvassed, made phone calls, wrote letters, protested, marched, walked out, showed up, voted and got up every day exhausted, but found the strength to go on.
Here is what happened:

More than 110 women are headed to Congress (some races still to be determined)
98 to the House and 12 to the Senate

9 female Governors elected: Gina Raimondo (D-RI); Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI); Janet Mills (D-ME); Kate Brown (D-OR); Kay Ivey (R-AL); Kim Reynolds (R-IA); Kristi Noem (R-SD); Laura Kelly (D-KS); Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM)

Two transgender women, Gerri Cannon and Lisa Bunker, elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives.

The first openly gay man elected as Governor in Colorado who is also the state’s first Jewish Governor (Jared Polis)

Chris Pappas is New Hampshire’s first openly gay member of Congress

Two Native American women elected to the House: Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe in New Mexico, and Sharice Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation in Kansas

The first lesbian Native American elected to the House from Kansas (Sharice Davids)

In Texas, the first two Latinas, Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia, elected to the House

In Massachusetts, Ayanna Pressley, the first African American woman elected to Congress, beat a 10-term incumbent

In Connecticut, the National Teacher of the Year 2016 Jahana Hayes is the first African American woman going to Congress

29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a Latina from New York, became the youngest woman ever going to Congress

The first Muslim women elected to Congress from Michigan (Rashida Tlaib) and Minnesota (Ilhan Omar)

Safiya Wazir, an Afghan refugee woman, headed to New Hampshire State House


Ilhan Omar, a refugee, is the first Somali American to be elected to Congress

Rashida Tlaib is the first Palestinian American woman elected to Congress

Angie Craig, defeats anti-LGBTQ congressman in Minnesota to become the first lesbian mom to be headed to Congress from Minnesota

Former Dreamer, Catalina Cruz, a woman who was undocumented for 10 years, is headed to the New York State House

Two transgender women, Gerri Cannon and Lisa Bunker, are elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives

Democrats Susan Ruiz and Brandon Woodard become the first LGBTQ members of the Kansas state legislature

Zach Wahls, who defended his two lesbian moms before the Iowa House of Representatives in 2011, becomes a state lawmaker himself

Malcolm Kenyatta is the first LGBTQ black man elected to the Pennsylvania legislature

Teri Johnston is elected mayor of Key West, Florida, becoming the state’s first lesbian mayor

Massachusetts voters uphold transgender rights protections

Kate Brown, the country’s first lesbian governor, and Tammy Baldwin, the first LGBTQ senator, are re-elected

Kim Davis (yes, THAT Kim Davis) was defeated in reelection bid by the man she refused a marriage license to  

We have a lot to celebrate!  After the first Women’s March, many mocked us. They laughed at our protests and said we would never make a difference at the polls. One politician called us “silly girls”. On Tuesday, we proved them wrong!  It is astounding to think about how far women have come since the first women’s marches across the country the day after President Trump was inaugurated. Many of these 2018 candidates were considered long shots, but they organized and they won! We all resisted, we persisted and we won!
 
And persist we will, because the struggle is far from over. We must work even harder going forward. 2020 is just around the corner. Celebrate our successes, get some rest and get back in the fight. The National Organization for Women needs you. Join the chapter nearest you!  Together we can move full steam ahead and change the world.
 
Melba Evans, President
National Organization for Women, Charlotte

Justice Older Than the Law

     Dovey Mae Roundtree passed away quietly in Charlotte, NC on May 21, 2018 at the age of 104.  Dovey Roundtree was an African American civil rights activist, attorney and ordained minister, born in Charlotte, NC on April 17, 1914. Her father worked as a printer at a local AME Zion Church while her mother was a domestic and a seamstress.  Johnson attended Spellman College and taught briefly in South Carolina before moving to Washington, DC. Because of her college education, Mary McLeod Bethune selected her to be among the first forty African American women who trained as officers in the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.  Later, she entered Howard Law School where Thurgood Marshall was one of her instructors.
As an attorney, her most prominent case came in 1955. Sarah Louise Keys, an African American WAC private had been forced by a North Carolina bus driver to relinquish her seat to a white Marine. Roundtree took the complaint to the Interstate Commerce Commission which on November 7, 1955 ruled that segregated interstate bus travel was banned. The Sarah Keys vs. The Carolina Coach Company decision was hailed as a major breakthrough for the civil rights movement. However, it remained unenforced until US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy used it to support the Freedom Riders Campaign. On May 29, 1961, the Department of Justice ordered the enforcement of the ruling and put a permanent end to segregated interstate travel.  Later, in 1964, she became one of the best known criminal defense lawyers in Washington when she won a not guilty verdict for African American day laborer Ray Crump who had been wrongly accused of murdering a Georgetown socialite.
Her memoir states that “As a woman and a woman of color in an age when black lawyers had to leave the courthouse to use the bathroom, she dared to practice before the court of justice and was unflinching.” She turned her practice to defending the disenfranchised and poor blacks of D.C. and was known as a one-person legal aid society. Today we pay tribute to Dovey Roundtree. “It is on the shoulders of people like Dovey Johnson Roundtree that we stand today, and it is with her commitment to our core ideals that we will continue moving toward a better tomorrow.”  Michelle Obama             

Winner of the Association of Black Women Historians' 2009 Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Prize
A new edition of Justice Older Than The Law: The Life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree by Katie McCabe and Dovey Johnson Roundtree, will be released in 2019. 

Love And Hugs To You!

     

         

     Suicide has become one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Recent events have been sad reminders that we have so much work to do in the area of mental health and depression. It is a topic people don't like to talk about, but we must talk about it and strive to provide the help people need. Based on recent nationwide surveys, suicide is on the rise. Federal data found that the suicide rate in the US has surged to the highest levels in over 30 years. The rise was particularly steep for women and girls. For girls, aged 10-14, the suicide rate tripled. Women attempt suicide three times more often than men.  

     These are very stressful times and often as women we feel that we are fighting for our lives. I talk to friends every single day who say they are just overwhelmed with all that is going on in our government. We face new challenges every day and often feel overwhelmed. It is a time to be kinder and gentler to each other and remember that all we have is each other. As a community of women, feminists and allies, let’s take time to reach out to each other today and give each other a hug and some encouraging words. Let people know that you genuinely care about them. As one who has reaped many benefits from counseling at stressful times in my life, I highly recommend seeking out a good counselor. It really helps to talk to a professional about how you are feeling. Remember to check on your loved ones and if you need help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255.

NO to 287g!

     

     On Wednesday, March 20, I had the opportunity to speak to the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners on behalf of NOW Charlotte.  Below is my 3 minute speech. 

     I am Melba Evans, President of NOWCharlotte but tonight, I am no longer Melba Evans. Tonight, I am the voice of hundreds of women in our community who stay silent and struggle alone in pain and fear every single day in our communities. I am the echo of their pleas to YOU for help. 

“Last year I was raped while I was walking through one of the streets of Charlotte, but I didn’t say anything.
My husband beats me and my children every day, but I don’t say anything.
I work in a factory, where my boss forces me to do sexual favors in exchange for keeping my job, but I don’t say anything.
     I know that these things are wrong. I know these people should pay for what they did to me and my family, but still I do not say anything.
     Why? Because I fear the police. I believe that the police are worse than all the things that have happened to me. They will separate me from my children. They will send me to a country that can only offer me more violence and more suffering. They will turn ME into the criminal.”
     No, this did not happen to me. This isn’t my story – it is the story of the lives of many immigrant women who hide in terror of telling the truth and putting the real criminals away. These are the stories that the National Organization FOR Women has heard over the years. Every one of these scenarios is real and documented right here in our community. And every time one of our sisters refuses to report a crime for fear of being deported, we hear her cry and we feel her pain. We have been raped, beaten, abused and mistreated. Tonight, the National Organization for Women is here to advocate for our immigrant sisters.
     It is a myth that 287g makes our communities safer. In fact, it does the opposite. Studies from the UNC Chapel Hill found that 287(g) agreements in North Carolina were primarily used to target offenders who posed no threat to public safety and a large percentage were arrested for minor traffic violations. Additionally, the 287g program is breaking down the bridges of trust that CMPD has been trying to establish in our immigrant communities. The Sheriff’s office is failing not only to protect the general population by not encouraging immigrant women to come forward, but it is oppressing immigrant women and girls making them hide in shame of crimes that others committed against them.

We are better than this. Please hear our voices. Hear the cries of our immigrant sisters. Put an end to the disgrace of 287g.

My Vision

   

I am so honored and excited to have been elected National Organization for Women Charlotte Chapter President. The Installation and champagne reception were very well attended. The Installation was done by our former Charlotte Mayor, Jennifer Roberts. Below is the speech that I gave at the Installation about my vision and goals for NOW Charlotte: 

Thank you for electing me and this outstanding slate. We are humbled and ready to get to work. Just a little about myself. I am the daughter of a minister and an educator.  Both of my parents were engaged in issues of equity and justice. My dad was a voice during civil rights and my mother was an advocate for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (which recently took a big blow). Both were very vocal about equity for women. Having grown up in this environment, I often tell people that activism for justice is in my DNA.  I was very blessed. I have spent my life in education while all the time advocating for the marginalized students.  I spent my career in high poverty schools.

     I was asked to share some of my vision for NOW.

First of all, let’s clarify feminism. I like the definition given by Bell Hooks in “Feminism is for Everybody.” She defines feminism as “a movement to combat systemic and institutional oppression. I like that definition because it is simple and it implies that all sexist thinking is a problem, whether those who perpetuate it are female or male, adult or child. It is also broad enough to include an understanding of systemic institutionalized sexism. Chimamanda, in “We Should All Be Feminists,” says her definition is that a “feminist is a man or a woman who says “Yes there is a problem with gender as it is now and we must fix it.” Love that! Simple and to the point.  The National Organization for Women is the largest organization of feminist grassroots activist in the US. NOW states as its mission to take action through grassroots activism to promote feminist ideals, lead societal change, eliminate discrimination, and achieve and protect the equal rights of all women and girls in all aspects of social, political and economic life.

     My vision for NOW Charlotte can be summed up in 3 words. The first is intersectionality. The term intersectionality is an academic term coined by Kimberle Crenshaw that has made its way into the mainstream. Though acceptance is increasing, that does not automatically translate into implementation. Intersectionality dictates that different identities, race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability, etc. cannot be put into separate little boxes because they are all interconnected. We all have multilayered facets of life that challenge us. There is no one size fits all in feminism. All injustice and inequity are intertwined. Intersectionality demands that we discuss how all these identities affect experiences with oppression. Truth telling must happen. People who have been victimized and marginalized and excluded and oppressed must be given a platform to speak and to lead. We must create a listening space because if we haven’t created an opportunity for people who are the victims of bigotry to have a voice, then our solutions will not be very informed. And sometimes, as we listen and become more enlightened, we find we need to change our own behaviors. Audre Lorde said “What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her own heel print on another woman’s face?”  Intersectional feminism is understanding that when we are told women make an average of 77 cents for a man’s dollar that it is even worse than that. Latino women make 54 cents, Afro American women make 64 cents and Native American women make 59 cents.  My vision for NOW is to take real strategic action to become more intersectional. We must all reach out to our marginalized sisters.  Above all, we must listen, acknowledge and validate their voices and bring their challenges to the forefront.

     The second word is inclusive.  Along the same lines of intersectionality, there are certain identities of which feminism has recently strived to be more inclusive. Inclusivity means intentionally creating safe spaces for people of marginalized identities. It means the blending of different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. It means respectfully and actively listening to people of groups to which we do not belong. We must step back, listen and learn. Inclusion recognizes what we have in common as it makes room for the differences among us. We must be inclusive of all races and of our non-binary and  transgender community. And I hope we will bring more men into the movement. Please note that we are National Organization FOR Women, not OF women. We have and encourage male membership. The best feminist I have ever known was my father. He is why I stand here today. Research shows that most men don’t really understand what the gender issues are today, so we must work toward demystifying the feminist movement  

And have you seen Black Panther? Wakanda refers to the “allyship” as “an empty, neoliberal concept that rarely results in transformational change.”  They say they do not want allies. They want co-conspirators in solidarity. That is exactly what we need. We need co-conspirators in solidarity in our movement. Feminism will better succeed with collective effort.

     Finally, the last word is social media activism. And this one will be a real challenge for me, but I know all these young feminists are going to help us all with social media.  Many people find an online community through twitter and other social media. Friends are made on social media. Some of you are here tonight because we met on fb and became friends. Support and education takes place on social media. Social media has been integral in the Blacks Lives Matter movement. The first Women’s March in 2017 that brought millions of women across the world together in solidarity was organized on social media. The internet allows activists to find community and understanding as well as exchange stories and ideas. Over the last few days, I have communicated with Now chapters in LA, Houston, Pittsburg and Baton Rouge through social media to exchange ideas and find out what their chapters are doing.  Even those of us with limited social media knowledge, can share NOW meetings and events on our own fb pages. We all need to check our NOW fb page regularly for updates and opportunities. Just as we strive for inclusive and intersectional justice, we must continue to change with the times.  Social media is vital to modem feminism. 

    And on a final note, we especially need all our members to show up for events and volunteer to help table an event. This is an important election year and we need everyone engaged and everyone to volunteer to go and help with events.  We will post opportunities on our facebook page and have signups at all our meetings as well as send out emails. There are events during the day that our employed members cannot attend, so our members who are not employed, we really need your help. Once you have done it, you will find how fun and energizing it is to talk to other like minded people.

     I heard a story about a farmer who found an abandoned eagle egg and brought it home for his hen to sit on.  The hen sat on it and the eaglet was born. The eaglet tried to walk and act like the other chickens on the farm. Then one day he looked up and saw an eagle in flight. He thought how wonderful it must be to fly like that and wished that he could soar like the eagle. He never knew that he could.  We may not know what we are capable of as an organization, but I believe we can soar and change the world. We may not feel powerful alone but when we come together we are a mighty voice. There is an old saying that as individuals we are a drop but together we are a mighty ocean. If we work together with the strong conviction that we are in this together and nobody can get there unless everybody gets there, we can make a difference in Charlotte, in Mecklenburg, in North Carolina, in our country and in the world.  Again, Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you!  

  

Remarchable Women's March 2018

On January 20, 2018, I was honored to be able to speak at the Remarchable Women's March in Charlotte, NC. Here is the entirety of that speech.

2018 Charlotte Women's March!

I am honored to have been asked to speak at the 2018 Charlotte Women's March on January 20 at First Ward Park  at 11:30. The March begins at noon to Romare Bearden Park. I hope to see YOU there! 

Anniversary March Speakers

Remarchable Women, the anniversary of the Women’s March on Charlotte, kicks off with an amazing group of speakers in First Ward Park, Saturday morning, January 20th.  This Speaker’s Forum, 10:00 to noon, represents Charlotte’s diversity and gives voice to our goal of equity and equality for all.  Speakers will provide strategies for us to make a difference in our communities.

Vi Lyles, Julie Eiselt, LaWana Mayfield

Speakers will include Vi Lyles, Charlotte’s first female African American Mayor, City Council Rep and Mayor Pro Tem Julie Eiselt, and City Council Rep LaWana Mayfield, Charlotte’s first openly gay council member.

Jan Anderson, President of Charlotte Women’s March, and Regina Stone-Grover, Community Activist and one of the coordinators of last year’s Women’s March on Charlotte, will introduce the speakers.
Additionally scheduled to speak:


Jill Dinwiddle, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic



Lynn Erdman, Assn. of Women’s Health, Obstetric & Neonatal Nurses

Jade Jackson, Poor People’s Campaign

Pam Hutson, Lillian’s List



Rose Hamiid, Muslim Women of the Carolinas





Delores Johnson Hurt, League of Women Voters



Yisel Pomier Maren, Latin American Coalition




Carolyn Logan, Black Women’s Caucus

Melba Evans, National Organization for Women

Rev Amantha Barbee, Pastor, Statesville Ave Presbyterian Church and Chair, Charlotte Clergy Coalition for Justice

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Join us Saturday, January 20 for Remarchable Women, on the Anniversary of the Women’s March.
For more information, sign up for email updates or click here for FAQs about the event.