Students ready for Million Woman March

The voices of many black University women will join others when they gather tomorrow in Philadelphia to participate in the Million Woman March.

Two buses filled with students are departing this evening from the Michigan Union. They will meet with two other busloads of women from the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area and make the 400-mile trek to Philadelphia.

"This is one day to bring all of the issues not just to the attention of the women there, but bring it to the conscience of the nation who might not be aware," said LSA and Music senior Dee Dee White.

Local participants registered at Originations Gallery in Arborland Mall, the area's designated MWM registration and information site.

White said that besides the planned presentations, the event will be a means of discourse for not only black women, but for all women of color to discuss issues relevant to them.

"Issues tend to be dealt with in a different way," White said. "We have to understand how the experiences started and try to resolve it from the same direction."

White said she and a few other women are videotaping the event, and have already started recording women as they prepare for the event. White said the tape will help capture the "University experience" of the march.

Annette Russell, who coordinated the event for the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area, said the march promises to be inspirational and motivational, but stressed the most important part won't happen in Philadelphia.

"What I think is really important is what we do when we come back to the community," Russell said.

Russell said she does not have a total estimate for how many women from the community will participate in the march, but she alone has registered 400 women.

"I just feel like it's a part of history for all of the women coming together," Russell said. "I am just so overwhelmed with the turnout we had at the last minute."

In addition to the march, a variety of speakers and entertainment performances are planned for tomorrow, including prominent South African politician Winnie Mandela and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif).

"I see the march mostly as a celebration, something to bring about awareness and consciousness," she said, contrasting tomorrow's march with the Million Man March that occurred two years ago and was a "day of atonement."

University student coordinators Tricia Moo-Young and Dara Maurant, who worked with Russell, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

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