By Michael Lovito
Hundreds of activists gathered outside Morristown town hall over the weekend to protest what they see as retrograde policies of the Trump administration.
Held to coincide with International Women’s Day, the Morristown Rally for Our Rights attracted between 300 and 400 people, according to a police estimate.
Thrusting signs with slogans like Wake Up and Smell the Coup and Women Will Save the World into the raw March wind, demonstrators heard speakers encourage them to turn despair into action to protect reproductive rights, shield undocumented immigrants, and foster female advancement in business and politics.
“This shows every one of you the power of grassroots activism,” Amalia Duarte, chair of the Morris County Democratic Committee, said.
“There is no question that every one of you can make a difference right here in our county, or in Warren County or Somerset County or Passaic County, wherever you came from.”
The crowd: Slideshow photos by Bill Lescohier, David Okada and Kevin Coughlin:
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day was Moving Forward Together, and a reoccurring motif on Saturday in Morristown was Democratic efforts to make waves in Morris County during this year’s state and local elections.
The program included Marisa Sweeney, a Morristown planning board member running for state assembly in the Republican-held 25th District, and Jocelyn Mathiasen, president of the Chatham Borough Council and Democratic candidate for county commissioner.
Sweeney, who owns Be Well Integrated Health Services on Bank Street, highlighted the deteriorating state of women’s healthcare in the United States.
The maternal mortality rate increased from 20.1 deaths per 100,000 live births to 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births between 2019 and 2021, she said. She also asserted that Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women.
“These numbers are not just statistics,” Sweeney said. “These are our mothers. These are our nieces. These are our friends. These are our family. These are the people that you are seeing here today among you.”
Sarah Best of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey (which sponsored the event along with the Morris County Democrats, the New Jersey Working Families Party, Action Together New Jersey, and the Sweeney-owned Be Well), kept the focus on healthcare.
She detailed her organization’s efforts to pass the Reproductive Freedom and Health Equity Bill package in the state legislature. These proposed laws would protect and expand reproductive health services and gender-affirming care statewide.
“We will need a lot of people power to continue to push this bill package,” Best said.
“Throughout the entire Trump administration, we will need support to continue to beat the drum and make sure that here in New Jersey, we are doing everything in our power to resist attacks on reproductive and sexual health.”
While signs carried by the crowd featured a wide range of slogans protesting Trump and Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk, the speakers’ emphasis on reproductive rights seemed to resonate loudest at the rally.
“I lived in a time where abortions were illegal, and illegal abortions were killing women, and if you asked me 55 years ago when I was protesting these same things that Roe would have been reversed, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Beth Stein, a birth worker from Montville, told Morristown Green.
“Thank God New Jersey isn’t as bad as Texas or Oklahoma. I can’t even imagine that my little granddaughters would not have this right if they lived in a different state.”
Signs of the times: Slideshow photos by Bill Lescohier, Beth Carroll and Kevin Coughlin:
‘FOR OUR FAMILIES…OUR CHILDREN…OUR FUTURE’
Other policy areas addressed Saturday included immigration and DEI, two other planks of the Democratic platform that have entered the crosshairs of the Trump administration.
Illness prevented Ana Vasquez of the immigration rights group Wind of the Spirit from making her scheduled appearance. But translator Nerissa Sime-Zuyluaga read a statement from Vasquez pushing for passage of the state Immigrant Trust Act.
The legislation would make it easier for undocumented immigrants to report workplace abuses and access health services, by limiting what data state and local law enforcement can share with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE.
“I am speaking to you for our families, for our children, for our future, for the right to walk peacefully through the city, for our quality of life, so that we no longer have to live with these anxieties,” Vasquez’s statement said.
Tatianna Mejia, a sophomore at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, highlighted the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher education and in the workplace, saying they ensure that women and racial minorities get a fair shot to succeed in traditionally male or white-dominated fields.
“I want to be able to believe that we can build a future that Susan B. Anthony fought for, that Dr. Martin Luther King dreamt of, that all of the activists that have ever walked the earth will be proud of,” Mejia said.
“I believe that we can only achieve this world … if we have policies like DEI ready to protect us.”
At the end of the program, Mathiasen presented the activists with five calls to action: Get involved in local organizations, be outspoken and visible at work and at home, pressure elected officials, donate to candidates and causes, and run for office.
Saturday’s crowd certainly had no problems with that second item. Throughout the speeches and after the program concluded, scores of activists waved their signs at passing cars on South Street, receiving a litany of approving honks and only a few thumbs down.
“Sell it!” a demonstrator shouted as a Tesla drove by. Tesla is one of Elon Musk’s companies.
Speakers: Slideshow photos by Bill Lescohier, Kevin Coughlin:
The crowd’s energy was buoyed by Wilma the Band, which performed the protest classics Ohio, For What It’s Worth and Revolution, as well as such perseverance-themed anthems as I Won’t Back Down and Don’t Do Me Like That.
In addition to highlighting candidates like Sweeney and Mathiasen, volunteers from Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s gubernatorial campaign circulated amongst the throng collecting petition signatures to help ensure she appears on this year’s primary ballot.
If elected, Sherrill would become only the second female governor in New Jersey history – a fact that Morris Township Mayor Donna Guariglia found ironic.
“Stop believing that women aren’t tough, aren’t ready, can’t handle the high stakes,” Guariglia said.
“Ask yourself, when it comes to quick thinking, collaboration, multitasking, compassion, empathy, and straight up love, is it a man who comes to mind?”
Noelle’s post is almost like satire if you can think just a little critically about events in the last few years. Its almost like every point that has been well refuted and disproven, but repeated ad nauseum by the media, and sold to low info, emotional voters.
Its so hard to even try to think how brainwashed this thinking is.
Flip NJ Red.
Great story and fabulous photos. Bravo Morristown! Civic participation at its best. I’m sorry I missed this!
This rally showed that there are a lot of people who don’t feel good about what is happening go in our government right now. The reality that our president is a convicted felon who is not holding up American values and is betraying a country fighting for Democracy in favor of Russia and Putin is sad.
How sad n pathetic. They aren’t marching for Lanken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, Rachel Morin . . . The democrats didn’t care when the Biden admin wanted to hire more IRS agents to go after us but they mind when doge goes after gov waste. This is what the American ppl wanted, to drain the swamp.
Is that multiple nazi salutes in the second to last picture?…
Lots of hate here in Morristown on a day meant to celebrate the achievements of the Woman across the globe.
What a shame
It’s about Tough Love, economic decisions, rule of law— not momma’s bosom and Hugs as is suggested some quoted within here need.
Aren’t women embarrassed that all they seek to do, they are known in the political stage as fighting to Abort their flesh and blood offspring so they can rule a man’s world.
Sounds like the real meaning of Empathy, Love and Compassion in action.
Thank God for Trump and his policies, rapid action, competent leadership and no nonsense approach.
Looking forward to the Republican en masse activism.
All those enthusiastic about abortions instead of chastity or planned parenting should consider self control and prioritize life over their own vanity. And to the less than 3 percent raped and with anomaly , ectopic etc excused. Again this is just basic common sense.
Save the republic. 1776 and its policies built the greatest country. Let’s return to the processes, policy, procedure, merits and standards that created it.
Left wing should create their own colony and all live together without federal funding.
How sad this is the way some spend their time.