Women's March in Washington

According to some, the Women's March on Washington DC, started with one woman's post of Facebook, it soon had sister marches in all 50 states and in a reported 80 countries around the world including Montreal, Sydney, London, and Tokyo. The Washington March saw over a half a million women, children and men of every race, nationality and sexual orientation marching in solidarity.

The Women's March's vision... "We stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families - recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country."

The Women's March mission... "The rhetoric of the past election cycle has insulted, demonized, and threatened many of us - immigrants of all statuses, Muslims and those of diverse religious faiths, people who identify as LGBTQIA, Native people, Black and Brown people, people with disabilities, survivors of sexual assault... We are confronted with the question of how to move forward in the face of national and international concern and fear."

It was a march to gather and inclusively address and to speak out against President Trump's racist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamaphobic, science denier, whose energy policy is to focus on fracking and reviving the coal industry and the completion of the DAPL and Keystone - agenda.

Over fifty women, teenagers, and children boarded a coach bus and left Akwesasne on Friday at 9pm. They arrived on Saturday in the early morning hours in Baltimore. From there they rode a train packed with people wearing pink hats, and carrying protest signs from every point in the east: Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maine. Arriving in the heart of Washington DC., they were noticed immediately by fellow marchers passing by. The contingent from Akwesasne wore traditional dress; red ribbon dresses or red skirts to commemorate and to call attention to the Missing and Murdered Women, they also carried signs for #noDAPL and to do more than just honor our veterans, but to actually take care of them after service. From the train station they met with many other Native Nations at the National Museum of American Indians to march in solidarity against President Trump and his continued campaign against women's right (equal pay, paid maternity leave, reproductive rights,) LGBT rights, Muslim rights, Mexican and Hispanic rights, environmental protection, and rights to quality public school education.

The Haudenosaunee were well represented with women and children from all six nations. As well, the Cherokee Nation, the Sioux, the Navajo, the Lakota, Hochunk, Cheyenne, and Wimmemen Middle Water people marched.

The Haudenosaunee women walk with a different presence, as it is long on history and as it is rich in tradition and protocol. Haudenosaunee women are born with rights, the right to chose (and remove) our own leadership, the right to love whom we want, the right to walk equal with men, the right to speak and to be heard. These are rights ingrained in our DNA, woven through our mothers and our grandmothers. They walk with a different meaning and intention. They walk to protect others of their rights to be equal, to protect our environment, and to protect the future of children. Protecting the rights of our immediate children will help to ensure the almost unfathomable place, the children yet unborn, will be in next Seven Generations.