2016 Rally 4 Rights – St. Louis

9. Rally for St. Louis

On July 16, 2016 – Katrina’s Dream is holding a rally in support of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.  The event starts at 12 noon at the National Jefferson Expansional Memorial Park.  The rally will speak to the issues of people of color and how the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is the unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement, as the United States of America, which is a post-colonial slave based economy turned prison industrial complex of one of the world largest military powers, is that the first step s to end racism and sexism in the USA is to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. That just as Kimberlé Crenshaw, a Black legal scholar whose insightful 1989 essay, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics”, that the intersectionality of racism and sexism and the systemic issues that they are the root thereof, would be addressed by this simple addition to our constitution.

The ERA is a US Constitutional Amendment that would empower all women no matter their color and provide for gender equality. The ERA is the unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement.  At the rally speakers will talk about the systemic issues that the ERA would address.

The ERA only needs three more states to included in the U.S. Constitution.  Missouri is one of the 15 unratified states. At the rally you will learn about how to help grow a grassroots movement across the nation and how to help support efforts to organize and move Missouri to ratify the ERA. We at Katrina’s Dream support the ‘Three State Strategy”  as it is a common sense approach.

The speakers will be talking about the systemic issues of the ERA and how they are manifested in today’s society. up. Here are some of the awesome men and women whom you will hear at our Rally4Rights..

Bush copyPastor Cori Bush is a community educator, nurse, and healer. Born and raised in the St. Louis Missouri area, Cori is an ordained pastor, an activist & organizer with Ferguson Frontline, co-director of the Truth Telling Project, an international presenter on nonviolent conflict, and a Nonviolence 365 Ambassador with The King Center, and a part of Ferguson’s Women’s Caucus. She is an organizer with Michael Brown Sr.’s Chosen for Change Foundation and is the host of her own internet radio show titled ‘ground.ed’ on BlogTalkRadio produced by Tribe Family Channel and Gumbo for the Soul. Cori is also in the process of forming the new Ferguson/ St. Louis chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), to help ensure that the Kingian philosophy on nonviolence is ever present in the St. Louis area.

Rev. Tommy Pierson copyRev. Tommie Pierson is a graduate of Beaumont High School in St. Louis; Pierson is former General Motors autoworker who’s served as a Baptist pastor around the region for decades. He first won election to the Missouri House in 2010, and later became the chairman of state’s Legislative Black Caucus. Pierson’s church became a major gathering point during the Ferguson unrest. It hosted a raucous August press conference for Gov. Jay Nixon, and also served as a sanctuary for protesters after a grand jury declined to charge former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson with a crime.

Pamela Merritt B&WPamela Merritt is co-founder and co-director of Reproaction, a new direct action group forming to increase access to abortion and advance reproductive justice. Merritt studied Anthropology at Bard College at Simon’s Rock and Brandeis University. Merritt blogs at AngryBlackBitch.com, and is a founding member of the Trust Black Women Partnership. She has been a featured contributor on National Public Radio (NPR), and her writing has been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Guardian UK, and Salon. In 2008 AngryBlackBitch.com was named one of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs by the Guardian UK.

Jocelyn Morris copyJocelyn Morris has always worked for “Equality for Women” and that includes efforts to correct imbalances in our culture in the US and around the planet which affect women and minorities in jobs and society. She has served on the National Organization for Women’s Global Feminist Strategies and Issues National Committee, 2007; currently serving on the  to Chair to present. She is VP Missouri NOW. She coordinated the NOW 2012 Conference Sexual Trafficking Workshop NOW Life member June 2009.

She currently serves on the Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline committees. Jocelyn published Soul Food Cook for the Afro-Culture Workshop in the Philippines in 1970 and again 2003 for Blacks in Government in Missouri. She is a retired Civilian Employee of the U.S. Army.

FB_IMG_1468268930508Johnathan McFarland is a father and lifelong citizen of St. Louis City along with his family. He’s attended St. Louis Public Schools from Kindergarten through high school and loves the resources that the city has to offer like the museums in Forest Park, St. Louis Public Libraries, and the Missouri Botanical Gardens. He went to the school for Mechanical Engineering and believes that education is the key to a safe and productive society. He has worked with many local non-profit organizations and has recently founded a nonprofit, Scene Everywhere,  with his ideas of direct democracy, civil duty, and applied education working with at-risk youth. He believes that empowerment is its own reward and therefore once any people learn how to practice self-determination they will pass that lesson to their future generations. He also is the Regional Coordinator for the Green Party Ballot Access Drive, is a leader of Black Lives Matter St. Louis, and offers free math and science tutoring to children as a resource to his community. Johnathan advocates for reparations to open and improve African American and Native American schools so as to end the vicious cycle of school closings, losing resources, and teachers not getting raises. Johnathan was instrumental in writing the Gateway Park proposal which attempts to alleviate the financial burden of the city so that it can reopen schools, improve the quality of life of its citizens, help spur population growth, and be a resource for the future of St. Louis.

RFS AVATARRobin Laverne Wilson [aka Dragonfly] is the 2016 Green Party senatorial candidate for New York State. As artist-activist-educator, she is an auteur, raconteur, and provocateur. She is the proud daughter of an Army combat medic/Korea/Vietnam veteran and a military wife/homemaker/domestic. Born in Detroit and raised in South Texas, she has called the New York City metropolitan area her home for over 13 years. She is a Baptist deacon’s daughter turned deaconess with Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping, and former co-host of the WBAI radio show, “The Earth Wants You.” She is also the self-created flamboyant music and performance activist, Miss Justice Jester. She earned a $41,000+ debt for her fancy interdisciplinary honors degree from a major New Jersey university. She is currently in the mid-year of earning her MA in Applied Theatre at CUNY School of Professional Studies. You can join her campaign at RobinForSenator.com and @RobinForSenator.

Just to name a few.  And do check our our Rally4Rights video.

We will be updating this page as the days go on.  Please keep checking here for progress!And be sure to join our Facebook Event page and click that you are interested and invite your friends and family.  To help get the word out Click Here.

Thank you for you support!!!