Gambit: New Orleans Women’s March brings 200 people to the polls despite confusion over police escort
BY KAYLEE POCHE, GAMBIT
The New Orleans Women’s March brought around 200 people to City Hall Saturday afternoon, where early voting was already underway. But the march almost didn’t happen when police didn’t arrive to clear traffic for marchers like organizers said they scheduled.
Organizer Teresa Thomas said march organizers had arranged for a police escort to arrive under the Claiborne Avenue overpass at noon through the Office of Police Secondary Employment (OPSE), which handles police escort requests for the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD).
“We called them and found out 20 minutes after they were supposed to be there that they weren’t coming,” Thomas told Gambit after the march. “They didn’t give us any reason. They just said, ‘Oh, it was canceled. They should have called you.’”
The march went on with a makeshift escort heavily assisted by City Council President Jason Williams, who was already in attendance. Williams had a friend drive his car — which had some police-style lighting — to lead the way for the protesters while he ran from intersection to intersection to stop traffic.
Williams, who is also running for District Attorney, told Gambit he didn’t know why police did not show up, but that he would reach out to NOPD for clarification. “I just want to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again, he said, “but luckily we were able to make it happen today.” NOPD did not respond to Gambit’s requests for comment as of press time.
Many attendees held up signs, including some that read “Hair today, gone tomorrow” with a picture of President Donald Trump’s hair, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking” and “I’ve been holding this damn sign since the 1960s.” A few even dug their Pussyhats of yesteryear out of the closet.
With the Supreme Court Senate confirmation hearings last week, several in attendance paid homage to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with signs, T-shirts and — as a true sign of the times — even a face mask. Many of the speakers, like New Orleans attorney Taetrece Harrison, mentioned Ginsburg in their address to the crowd.
“We are here because a woman who fought for us, who fought for women, for decades died … Justice Ginsburg,” Harrison said, firing up the crowd. “And now we’re watching Amy Barrett try to fill her shoes. She couldn’t even eat the gum off of her shoes.”
“We are all standing on the tiny-but-mighty shoulders of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” said JP Morrell, a former state senator who was term-limited in 2019, as he wore a gold Ginsburg tee. “As someone who has been in the maelstrom of misinformation that is the Louisiana government, I know how frustrating it is to see that there is a war on women in the Louisiana Legislature that has spanned generations.”
Morrell tried last year to get the Louisiana Legislature to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which would add language to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing equal legal rights to all sexes if ratified by enough states. While the resolution did get out of a Senate committee, it failed by a wide margin once it got to the Senate floor.
“Though we did not pass that bill, we rattled those conservatives,” he said Saturday. “We terrified those conservatives because what they fear more than anything is the incremental reform of us taking back our state, taking back our lives and saying hands off the bodies of our wives, our daughters and our sisters.
“You are sending a message to them that they don’t want to hear.”
Other speakers included state Rep. Mandie Landry, Magistrate Court candidate Juana Marine Lombard, Criminal Court Judge candidate Kimya Holmes, Municipal Court candidate Meg Garvey, Democratic challenger to U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise Lee Ann Dugas and several other hopeful candidates in the New Orleans races.
But the stars of the show seemed to be a woman dressed as a masked Handmaid and another donning a long black robe and lace collar to honor Ginsburg, with many stopping to take photos with and of them.
Protesters wore masks and seemed to keep distance between them, although not always six feet apart. A team of volunteers were there to remind people to space out while marching, and one volunteer sprayed down the microphone with disinfectants between speakers, at one point joking “I got more stage time than the candidates.”
Williams told Gambit drivers along the route were generally supportive of the march, which started under the Claiborne overpass in Treme and took Basin Street and Loyola Avenue to City Hall, where attendees were encouraged to early vote.
“I gotta take my hat off to New Orleanians again,” he said. “People were like, ‘Oh OK, this is the Women's March? Got it.’ They were glad to put their hazard lights on. They said they would gladly sit there and watch the march in support. Some people got out of their cars.
“It was safe, it was beautiful, and I was glad to be a part of it.”
Thomas agreed, adding she was also pleased with the attendance for the march. “I think the turnout was perfect,” she said. “Enough showed up together in solidarity, but it was small enough that we were able to social distance and remain safe.”