Thousands Protest Assault On Women And Their Rights Dissident Voices Raised In D.C. Against Violence And Gop Agenda

Galvanized by a Republicancontrolled Congress that one speaker said has launched “a conservative crusade against women’s rights,” tens of thousands of people gathered on the Mall Sunday to protest domestic violence, proposals to cut welfare and attacks on abortion clinics.

They described themselves as battered women and incest survivors, welfare mothers and union organizers, college idealists and longtime political activists. The vast majority were women, and most were white, although there was a sprinkling of black and brown faces.

The National Organization for Women organized the Rally for Women’s Lives with a long list of issues - from immigrants’ and gay rights to affirmative action - and touted it as the first step in influencing the political agenda for 1996, an election year.

Under blue skies and a hot sun, the crowd often seemed festive, listening to speeches and music from a huge stage set up with the U.S. Capitol as its backdrop.

But many in the crowd said they felt isolated by the Republican revolution that swept the country in November and frightened by the social reforms outlined in the Republican “Contract With America.”

“Why am I here? Two words: Newt Gingrich,” said Della Stapleton, 74, a relationship counselor who drove to the rally from Waynesboro, Pa., with her husband, Philip, 77.

The Stapletons, longtime activists, said they opposed virtually every part of the new right-wing agenda, especially limiting access to abortion and welfare for teenage mothers.

Words didn’t come as easily for Lille Neal, 69, a former factory worker from Detroit who now lives on Supplemental Security Income and often needed government assistance when raising her children years ago. She thought for a while about why she had made the long bus trip to Washington with nine other welfare activists and about 50 members of the Detroit chapter of NOW.

“For the poor. The women. The cuts,” Neal said finally, pursing her lips and shaking her head. “The women who have children. I don’t approve of them taking food from the babies.”

Organizers said the rally was a logical response to an increasingly conservative political climate and growing violence at abortion clinics. “We are definitely under siege,” said Rosemary Dempsey, a vice president of NOW. “Woman-hating and scapegoating (are) being instilled from the very top.”

NOW President Patricia Ireland estimated the crowd, which covered the easternmost quarter of the Mall, at 200,000. U.S. Park Police said 50,000 people attended, based on photographs taken from helicopters that flew overhead.

Demonstrators wandered between the stage and the Washington Monument grounds, where 6,000 brightly colored T-shirts flew from dozens of makeshift clotheslines, each one paying tribute to a woman affected by domestic abuse. Denise Brown hung a white T-shirt in honor of her sister Nicole Brown Simpson, the slain ex-wife of O.J. Simpson.

“I was only 6 years old. DO NOT TELL ME I WAS ASKING FOR IT,” was the message on one pink T-shirt.

“He broke my nose and my tailbone, but not my spirit,” read another, signed by Fay from Peoria.

The shirts are part of the National Clothesline Project, a five-year effort to chronicle the struggle of sexually abused and battered women in the same way that the AIDS quilt remembers victims of that disease.

On the stage and among the demonstrators, Gingrich and his “contract” received most of the criticism. Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, drew thunderous applause when she vowed that “the Newt Gingrich Congress” will never be allowed to outlaw abortion “in our lifetimes.”

In the crowd, people held signs reading, “Newt treats poor families poorly,” and “Contract With America - War on Us.”