For Immediate Release
January 21, 2017
SCDP CHAIR STATEMENT ON WOMEN’S MARCH ON WASHINGTON
Columbia, SC – South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Jaime Harrison released the following statement on today’s Women’s March on Washington:
“We had hoped that yesterday would be the day when a woman officially broke the highest, hardest glass ceiling. Cruelly, a misogynist was inaugurated instead. After working so hard to elect an impeccably qualified woman, only to see the election of a woefully unqualified man, women (and right-thinking men) might have understandably spent this weekend as far away from politics as possible.
“But instead, they decided to march—not just in Washington but all across America.
“During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama declared, ‘We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.’ That was right then, and it’s even more right now. Now that Donald Trump is president, we can’t wait for others to protect women’s rights or any of the values all of us hold dear; we have to do it ourselves. The organizers of and participants in the Women’s March on Washington, as well as those marching in solidarity here in South Carolina and around the country, are leading the way by wisely refusing to wait at all. To paraphrase Angela Davis, they are no longer accepting the things they cannot change. They are changing the things they cannot accept.
“The turnout for the march today reportedly may exceed that at the inauguration itself—which is unsurprising given that Hillary Clinton won almost 3 million more votes than Donald Trump. Yet this tremendous Women’s March is still a remarkable feat given the spontaneous and decentralized organization of the event. The inspiring organizers and marchers are showing us how we must resist the Republican regime: our efforts must be bottom-up, broad based, peaceful, passionate, unifying, and creative.
“I look forward to many more marches over the next four years. We are the ones who will uphold America’s greatness and eventually break that ultimate glass ceiling. Because as Michelle Obama has reminded us, ‘No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half of its citizens.'”
