A Big Hill for March to Climb

Spurred by the success last fall of the “Million Man March” in Washington, a group of Los Angeles residents hopes to duplicate the event with--what else--a million-woman march.

Officially called the “Million Women March and Conference,” it is scheduled to be held in Los Angeles in mid-June.

Its organizers, a South-Central-based magazine and a civil rights group, hope to attract hundreds of thousands, if not a million, women from all over the world for discussions on how to strengthen families.

Despite the misgivings of some city officials about the planners’ ability to pull off such an event and uncertainty over the availability of Exposition Park, which the organizers have chosen as their main venue, march chairwoman Gwendolyn Hughes said she fully expects the event “to proceed rain, shine, sleet or snow.”

The plan is to fill Exposition Park to its 100,000-person capacity, she said, then have buses carry the overflow to Griffith Park. There, she said, participants will be able to watch on oversize video screens and see speakers such as Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, and civil rights icon Rosa Parks, both of whom spoke at the “Million Man March.”

That event, organized by the Nation of Islam and other groups, attracted anywhere from 400,000 to more than a million African American men, depending upon whose count is believed, to the nation’s capital for a well-publicized day of solidarity and speechmaking.

The Los Angeles planners envision an even more ambitious program.

For one, participation in the “Million Women March” will be open--for a $25 registration fee--to women of all races from all over the world. They are expected to meet for three days, June 14, 15 and 16. In addition, unlike the “Million Man March,” plans include an actual march--a 3.2-mile hike along Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. the morning of Saturday, June 15.

Plans also include a survey of participants in an effort to identify problems and formulate strategies to solve them.

None of that is meant to comment negatively on the “Million Man March,” organizers say.

“We are not in opposition to the ‘Million Man March.’ We take our hats off to it,” said Linda Coleman-Willis, program chair for the planned event. “We just want to come up with a slate of solutions for problems facing the family.”

Those problems, she said, include teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and single-parent households.

The event also will feature free health-testing and voter registration, according to Hughes and Coleman-Willis.

Carolyn Webb de Macias, chief of staff for City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, in whose district the event is to be held, expressed skepticism about its chances for success.

After months of meetings between Ridley-Thomas aides and the march planners, she said, the organizers have failed to provide requested written confirmations from co-sponsoring groups and copies of contracts that would give the event credibility.

“We have not been able to cause a structure to occur that we’re comfortable with,” de Macias said. “We don’t know what to expect.”

Celes King III, state chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, which is sponsoring the event along with the Freedom Journal, a magazine based in South-Central, said all requests for information made by Ridley-Thomas’ office have been met.

But de Macias was not the only person unsure of how the event would play out.

Carl Phillips, facilities manager at the California Museum of Science and Industry, which oversees Exposition Park, said the the museum’s board of directors has yet to give its approval for use of the park, currently under construction in several areas.

They won’t meet to discuss the issue until the first Wednesday in June, Phillips said, just 10 days before the kickoff event.

“Obviously it’s getting kind of late in the day,” he said, but added, “that doesn’t mean [the march] is not going to happen.”

An alternative plan, he said, is to use a parking lot the size of five football fields and surrounding areas just west of Exposition Park.

Also confident that things will work out is the Los Angeles Police Department.

Sgt. Sergio Sais of the LAPD’s tactical planning section, who has been working with march organizers, said the planning is “moving along. It should be OK.”

“Like everything else,” he said, “a lot of things happen at the last minute.”

Glenda Wina, a spokeswoman for county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whose 2nd District covers Exposition Park, said that members of Burke’s office met with the organizers in March and that the supervisor “is very supportive” of the event.

King said 180 volunteers have been working feverishly for six months, recruiting churches and community organizations and sending invitations for the march to consulates and organizations in 139 countries, as well as all over the United States.

By comparison, the “Million Man March” organizers planned for nearly a year.

“The ‘Million Man March’ was a masterpiece of organization,” King said. “We’re going to have to run as hard and fast as we can” to duplicate its numbers.