Why I March

As a writer I feel obligated to post some thought-provoking and heartfelt prose about what it meant to participate in the Women's March Alabama in Birmingham yesterday. But I'm honestly at a loss for words.

I can't tell you how humbling yet empowering it felt to walk down the same streets that men, women, and children marched down in the 1960s so that people with skin like mine would have the right to vote - for real - and would have better access to education and jobs. The foot soldiers of the civil rights movement risked their lives, some lost their lives, so I could have the life I do today. I thought of them with every step I took down those Magic City streets.

I can't tell you how special it was to march yesterday with my husband, some of my students, and some of the women of See Jane Write by my side.

Sharing the Women's March of Alabama in Birmingham with my students meant the world to me.

But I can tell you why it was important for me to march yesterday. I marched for my husband, my students, and the women of See Jane Write who were by my side.

Feminist husbands do it better.

I marched because black lives matter and no woman married to a black man should have to worry about his life being taken by the very people sworn to protect it.

My students are why I march.

I marched for the girls in my classroom and the girls around the world who deserve every chance to become the women they dream of one day being. I marched because girls deserve to be treated with respect, to be recognized as more than a pretty face or a number on a scale. I marched because women and girls deserve to be trusted, to be believed.

Photo courtesy of Artney Walker of My Pretty Brown Fit

I marched for women and girls who want their voices to be heard.

I marched for women and girls who want to be the authors of their own lives.

I marched for myself.

I marched for you.

More moments from Women's March Alabama in Birmingham: