Let's Take a Walk #62 for The International Women's Day

Dear Friends 

Thank you so much for joining us on March 8 for Let's Take a Walk #62  in person and via Twitter X @mcayer & Instagram Live @LetstakeaWalk_World. We celebrated #InternationalWomensDay. #walkingtogetherapart for #allwomen #withLoveforPeace

This year's Women's Month theme: Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress. Inspiring Inclusion, highlights the significance of diversity and empowerment across all sectors of society.

The Color, purple.

What song or a poem that celebrates All Women and speaks of #womensrights & #EmbraceEquity do you sing or recite?

Let's Take a Walk #62 began in Washington Square Park, on the side of the ephemeral artwork of Felix Morelo, The International Day of Women's Circle. Nearby, musicians were playing, and Kanami Kusajima @Laithairdown was dancing. We walked under the Arch, where The Suffragettes marched for women's rights on March 8, 1857, when female textile workers marched in protest of unfair working conditions and unequal rights for women. It was one of the first organized strikes by working women, during which they called for a shorter workday and decent wages. In addition to the Women's March for Suffrage on October 23, 1915, over 25,000 women marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City to advocate for women's suffrage. At that point, the fight had been ongoing for over 65 years, with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 first passing a resolution favoring women's suffrage. Unfortunately, they wouldn't find success for another five years.

My gratitude to the excellent Storyteller and city guide Erin Donnelly who presented Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in understanding American Art and the founder of The Whitney Museum and so much more. Paul suggested Women Hold Up Half Sky, Tanasha took up the challenge and sang Women Hold Up All the Sky,

Tanasha sang her original song Love is Here accompanied by her mother, Penni. The poet and painter Cheryl Kaplan read Chartless by Emily Dickinson.

As we enter the outstanding New York Studio School on the former site of The Whitney Museum. Walking along 8th Street, we discussed the History of the 8th Street artists, particularly women such as Elaine De Kooning, Lee Krasner, and Joan Mitchell. Their stories are wonderfully told in the book The Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel. Our walk's last stop was at The Jefferson Public Library, formerly The Jefferson Market Courthouse and Women's House of Detention. As Wendy read its history, we learned that Mae West was detained at the Jefferson House of Detention and accused of Obscenity Charges following the Broadway opening of her play Sex. She had to pay a $500.- penalty and served a sentence of 10 days. 

Thank you so much to all for your continuous participation. I want to highlight Wendy Wasdahl, Alvin Eng, and Paul Katz for their long-time support and participation, Laura for recommending The Ninth Street Women, as well as Uli and Estraya from London, who joined us in person. My gratitude goes to people who followed LTAW #62 via Instagram Live, and to everyone who were with us in thought. To see the video of our journey please go to @letstakeawalk_world LTAW#62

Together, as always, we walked for Peace, thinking in particular about the horrendous war taking place in Israel and Palestine. Our thoughts of comfort and wishes for Peace to all. 

#WalkingTogetherApart #withLoveforPeace. 

 

Chartless by Emily Dickinson.

I never saw a moor,   

I never saw the sea;   

Yet now I know how the heather looks,   

And what a wave must be.   

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in Heaven;   

Yet certain am I of the spot   

As if the chart were given.