Black Women March as One in Philadelphia

Under overcast skies, hundreds of thousands of black women gathered here Saturday to tell each other and the world, in the words of one participant: “We are unified, we are standing.”

The Million Woman March, designed to bring together black women much as the Million Man March in Washington did two years ago, drew women from every walk of life and every corner of the country to a mile-long parkway that stretches from Philadelphia’s historic downtown to the classical facade of the Philadelphia Art Museum.

Although each came with her own story, many said they had rented cars and vans or boarded buses and trains to this city because they wanted to be at an event that bound together black women of different generations, different backgrounds and from worlds as far apart as rural South Carolina and the tough streets of New York’s Bedford Stuyvesant.

“I just thought it was a great opportunity to help support all women,” said 70-year-old Estella Williams of Anderson, S.C. “Just being here makes you feel close to all the women, and women have to stick together, then maybe we can help fight crime and drugs.”

A mother of 18, who worked all her life on the cleanup crew in a Michelin tire factory, Williams came to Philadelphia with a few of her 50 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.

Philadelphia police estimated the crowd at between 300,000 and 1 million. Organizers said about 2.1 million people filled the avenue in early afternoon.

Among the speakers was Winnie Mandela, former wife of South African President Nelson Mandela. Her remarks wrapped up a seven-hour program.

“To the women of the United States, to African American women, I say amandla,” she said, using the “power” slogan from the fight for black rights in South Africa. “The power of your call invokes your Africanism and mine. . . .

“We have a shared destiny, a shared responsibility, to save the world from those who attempt to destroy it.”

Mandela was an anti-apartheid leader while her former husband was in prison, and she is accused of involvement in the torture, kidnapping and murder of several South Africans. Her appearance seemed likely to cast a cloud of controversy over the event, but few of the marchers seemed bothered.

Many said they wanted participants to remember not what divided women but what they had in common.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) told the gathering: “After today, we will never be the same. America, please be placed on notice: We know who we are. We know what kind of power we have. We will act on that power.”

Khadijah Farrakhan, wife of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, told marchers that the event was inspired by the Million Man March, which was launched by her husband.

“A nation can rise no higher than its women,” she said. “We focus on women but cannot lose sight that we must rise as a family. Men, women and children.”

Notably absent from the event was Coretta Scott King, the person whom a number of women in the crowd named as their heroine.

Many, however, said the speeches were not the reason they came. As women threaded their way between hawkers of sweet bean pie, perfumed oils and T-shirts with pictures of the Egyptian pyramids and the face of Betty Shabazz, the recently deceased widow of Malcolm X, they were paying attention above all to each other: their numbers, their diversity, their commitment to being there.

“Just being here is a large statement. People took off time from work to be here. For myself, I have a young son--21 months old--and I’m bringing up my cousin, she’s 7,” said Sislena Grocer of Washington, D.C., who wore a traditional African head wrap as a sign of solidarity with women in Africa.

Grocer said she knows the hazards of the street firsthand. She is bringing up her cousin because the girl’s mother is a drug addict who abused the child. While caring for the two youngsters, Grocer also holds down a job and goes to school.

In conversation after conversation, women talked about how much they hoped the event would help restore their self-esteem and give them a sense of pride and confidence. They saw that, because they had set their minds to it, they had accomplished something as dramatic as the march.

Like tens of thousands of marchers from historically black colleges and universities, Grocer learned about the event on campus. Organizers were highly successful at getting out information about the event despite the absence of a high-profile media campaign. They also used an Internet Web site and relied on church groups.

The event sprang from two grass-roots community activists here: Phile Chionesu, who owns an African arts and culture store, and Asia Coney, a housing activist.

“I didn’t think there would be so many of us,” said Malaury Cancon, 18, a sociology student at Jersey City State College in Jersey City, N.J. But she said she was disappointed that only one man had come to see off her bus, which left at 5 a.m. She said it was a small but piercing reminder of how hard it will be, after the march is over, to get families that are already facing poverty and living in broken neighborhoods to pull together.

“During the Million Man March, all the women sent their men off to the march with food and they took them to the bus, but on my whole bus, there was just one woman whose husband came to drop her off. . . . I couldn’t get my brother to take me, and I had to leave my house at 3 a.m,” she said.