Organizers who had been planning to hold a California Women’s March in January have now canceled the event, claiming the attendees would have been “overwhelmingly white.”
The Humboldt County organizers had planned to host the rally in Eureka, California on Jan. 19th to honor the third anniversary of the original Women’s March in Washington, D.C., in 2017 after President Trump was inaugurated. After it was revealed that the event would not be as diverse as the Eureka Women’s March organizers would like, they decided to pull the plug on Friday.
The group said in a statement:
The local organizers are continuing to meet and discuss how to broaden representation in the organizing committee to create an event that represents and supports peoples who live here in Humboldt. Up to this point, the participants have been overwhelmingly white, lacking representation from several perspectives in our community. Instead of pushing forward with crucial voices absent, the organizing team will take time for more outreach. Our goal is that planning will continue and we will be successful in creating an event that will build power and community engagement through connection between women that seek to improve the lives of all in our community.
According to the statement, the group is now “exploring holding an event in March to celebrate International Women’s Day.”
Earlier this month, the Washington state chapter of Women’s March disbanded over concerns of anti-Semitism circulating within the organization’s national leadership.
The statement from the California Women’s March chapter comes just days after the Chicago chapter announced it would not continue with its plans to have a 2019 rally commemorating the national group’s third-anniversary march. The Chicago chapter cited high costs and insufficient volunteer hours as the reasoning behind the cancellation of the event.
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