WOMEN CLOSE DOWNTOWN L.A. STREET; BRAVE NY STORM IN 8TH MARCH COMMEMORATION (tags)
Saturday morning, March 8th, saw police barricades going up at and traffic diverted from Olympic & Broadway Streets as hundreds of women marched in the first International Women's Day mass action in Los Angeles since 1994. Scores of students from the University of Southern California, Cal State Long Beach, Long Beach Community College, University of California Los Angeles, East Los Angeles College, Cal State Los Angeles and from the Fremont, Jordan, Belmont high schools and El Sereno Middle School joined the march against the war. "We're here to let people know that we are with women all around the world who think that the war is unjust and a waste of our government's money," said USC Social Work student Kathryn Cronin. Led by the Mariposa Alliance/GABNet, the historic gathering created a buzz in the world of the U.S. women's movement, which had tended to take March 8th for granted. Ma-Al/GABNet called for the return of International Women's Day to its historic and political context, and to use 8th March as a statement against US-led imperialist wars, notably in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Philippines.