Dear Members and Friends,

August was a wonderful month with the energizing Democratic National Convention and our postcarding. It is so exciting to have a major party’s nominee for President be a woman who will be our next President. Kamala Harris is such a joyful contrast to the opposition and has the experience and competence to do the job of President. She is polling so well; it is a thrill. Debbie Murcasel-Powell is up to taking Rick Scott’s seat. We have so many other feminists running that we can make some headway when they win. That is all about my partisan, PAC side. Be sure to see our endorsements on the PAC page on the flnow.org website. If you can, please help campaigns phonebank and canvass.

Congratulations! Together we wrote and mailed 24,000 postcards to some of the people that were rejected by the SOEs for bad signature or unknown/not registered on their petition validation reviews. Hopefully, many will fix their registrations. Later in September, we will be doing more postcards, 12,000, pushing people to vote who were accepted in the petition validation. FPF (Floridians Protecting Freedom) are providing the postcards, stamps, and lists for that postcarding. I won a grant for 12,000 to 18,000 postcards the first part of October. We have so little time left! Be ready to postcard. 

Welcome new members newly charged up on women’s rights. No matter how the election goes, we will have tons of work to do because Florida has gone so far backward.

We are working on more grants, e.g., to support our legislative program, to really make a dent in period poverty, some significant resource to support the Campus NOW program. We have a great fundraising expert working with us, Renee Ebert.

Watch for our position explanations on the 6 amendments on the 2024 ballot. As Anna Eskamani, FL House Rep for Orlando area, put it, vote yes on both 3 and 4, but NO on everything else—Amendments 1,2, 5, 6 were mostly put up by the super-majority in the legislature, so are not amendments good for the people, the environment, or the state.

Your Chapter may be doing the WomenRoar24 artsy-craftsy project to create a garland that stretches a city block of all kinds of pink fabrics to represent for Amendment 4 and a woman for President. It is fun and can be used for tabling, parades, even just sign waving. It is mostly ripping fabric (all pre-cut) and tying to the garland rope, and attaching tags. Members and event goers can attach tag with what they want to say, e.g., Will Vote Yes on 4, Vote for Kamala, Harris/Walz Are the In Crowd. WomenRoar24 is being done by NOW Chapters across the country. Greater Orlando NOW had some postcarders rip all the fabric. They loved getting their aggression out and made short work of it.

Don’t forget about signatures of family, friends, and neighbors on the Medicaid Expansion and the Clean and Healthy Water petitions. They are so important.

In honor of Women’s Equality Day, I think it would be good to refresh on equity versus equality especially since both terms are in our vision We envision a Florida where all people experience true equality, equity, safety, and no community is marginalized. Equity means everyone is provided the specific resources they need to be successful—if one person or group of people need more resources than another to have success, then they get those resources. Equality means everyone is treated the same exact way, regardless of differences and specific needs. Equality is about equal rights and opportunities. Equity is about fairness and justice in treatment.

Back to the fight for women’s rights! Thanks for all you do.

The Kerner Commission confirmed that nervous police and National Guardsmen sometimes fired their weapons recklessly after hearing gunshots. Above, police patrol the streets during the 1967 Newark Riots. © Bud Lee, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

President Lyndon Johnson constituted the Kerner Commission to identify the genesis of the violent 1967 riots that killed 43 in Detroit and 26 in Newark, while causing fewer casualties in 23 other cities. The most recent investigation of rioting had been the McCone Commission, which explored the roots of the 1965 Watts riot and accused “riffraff” of spurring unrest. Relying on the work of social scientists and in-depth studies of the nation’s impoverished black urban areas, or ghettoes as they were often called, the Kerner Commission reached a quite different interpretation about the riots’ cause.

In moments of strife, the commission determined, fear drove violence through riot-torn neighborhoods. During the Detroit mayhem, “the city at this time was saturated with fear. The National Guardsmen were afraid, the citizens were afraid, and the police were afraid,” the report stated. The commission confirmed that nervous police and National Guardsmen sometimes fired their weapons recklessly after hearing gunshots. Intermittently, they targeted elusive or non-existent snipers, and as National Guardsmen sought the source of gunfire in one incident, they shot five innocent occupants of a station wagon, killing one of them. Contrary to some fear-driven beliefs in the white community, the overwhelming number of people killed in Detroit and Newark were African-American, and only about 10 percent of the dead were government employees.

Finding the truth behind America’s race riots was a quest undertaken not just by the Kerner Commission: in late 1967 Newsweek produced a large special section reporting on the disturbances and offering possible solutions to racial inequality.

A copy of that issue resides in the collections of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The magazine’s graphically powerful cover depicts two raised African-American hands. One forms the fist of black power; the other has slightly curled fingers. Perhaps, Pretzer says, that hand is reaching for the American dream—or on its way to closing another fist. “It was deliberately ambiguous,” he states. In addition, the cover bears this headline: “The Negro in America: What Must Be Done.” This seems to characterize African-Americans as nothing more than “a subject to be analyzed and decisions made about and for,” Pretzer believes.

In late 1967, Newsweek produced a large special section reporting on the disturbances and offering possible solutions to racial inequality. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © Newsweek, Inc. 1967

The magazine interviewed a city planner who believed the answer lay in regimented integration. Under his plan, only a certain number of blacks would be re-located in each suburb so that whites would never feel threatened by their black neighbors. This would a create an integrated society, but would integration be right if it was achieved by once again limiting black options? As Pretzer suggests, the magazine’s exploration of radical change somehow still managed to treat African-Americans more like chess pieces than human beings, who might want to choose where they lived.

The magazine’s editor, Osborn Elliott, believed the package represented a move away from the objective reporting revered in this era and a rush toward a new type of advocacy journalism. Rather than merely reciting the numbers of people dead, buildings damaged, and store windows shattered, Newsweek sought to shape a future without these statistics. “The problem is urgent—as the exploding cities and the incendiary rhetoric make inescapably plain,” the magazine argued. Instead of whispering in its readers’ ears, Newsweek was screaming in their faces. The magazine published its issue about three months before the March final report of the Kerner Commission. This special project won a 1968 National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors.

Newsweek’s findings did not go unnoticed, but the Kerner report created considerably more controversy. It rebutted a common critique contrasting the mass of primarily European immigrants who crowded into slums in the early 20th-century and African-Americans who moved from the rural South to urban centers in the middle of the century. Because most immigrants gradually moved up America’s social ladder, some have suggested that harder work would lead African-Americans out of poverty and into the middle class.

Abortion bans in the U.S. are impacting migrants who are victims of sexual assault. MSNBC contributor Paolo Ramos shared more on what post-Roe America looks like in the eyes of women crossing the border.

There is an alarming disconnect between the agenda of our most powerful organizations and the real needs of abortion seekers and providers on the ground.

This information has been gathered from the FL League of Women Voters Voter Guide:

Vote NO, Amendment 1 : Partisan School Board—Bringing partisan politics into School Boards would be disastrous for the workings of the school board. It would not be in the best interest of making decisions on education of our children.  A NO  vote leave School Board elections as nonpartisan elections with no closed primaries, allowing all voters to vote for any candidate.

Vote NO, Amendment 2: Right to Hunt and Fish—Restricts environmental protection and other regulatory from limiting hunting and fishing where necessary.  A NO vote would not establish a constitutional right to hunt and fish, but the 2002 Florida statute preserving the right to hunt and fish would remain in place. 

Vote YES, Amendment 3: Adult Personal Use of Marijuana - Proposed Amendment 3 would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 years and older.  Supporters say that there is no evidence that legalizing marijuana for recreational use at the state level, as 37 states have already done, has reduced underage consumption from the regulated marketplace.

Vote YES, Amendment 4: Limit Government Intervention with abortion—Keep politicians out of healthcare decisions.  Supporters say "All Floridians deserve the freedom to make personal medical decisions, free of government intrusion.  A YES vote would prevent any law from prohibiting, penalizing, delaying, or restricting abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health, as determined by the patient's healthcare provider.

Vote NO, Amendment 5: Annual Inflation Adjustment for Homestead Property Tax Exemption Value—Doesn’t help marginalized communities.  Opponents, including the Florida League of Cities, say the amendment would reduce revenue available to cities and counties by millions of dollars.

Vote NO, Amendment 6: Repeal of public financing for campaigns—Repeal would mean that only millionaires and billionaires could hold office.  Opponents of this amendment, state that the matching fund program gives small-dollar donors a greater voice and encourages candidates to seek support from broad groups of voters.

FL NOW is working hard with the Floridians Protecting Freedom  coalition to get Amendment 4 passed in November.

The Amendment reads:

No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health, as determined by the patient's healthcare provider.

Do you want to make phone calls, write postcards, canvass, or donate money?

This is our chance to get abortion medical care out of punitive legislator's' hands and back to medical care.  A decision to have an abortion is between a pregnant person's faith, family, and medical provider.  The government has no business with our private personal medical decisions.

We need 60% of the Florida voters to vote YES ON 4.

How are YOU going to make this happen?

Please contact Dawn Thomas, chair of the  FL NOW Reproductive Rights Task Force and volunteer!

Check out the Zoom Meeting Guidelines the Board is using for its meetings. They might be useful to the Chapters too.

FLNOW Zoom Meeting Guidelines

1. Show your name, pronouns & Chapter. (Ask how to update)

2. Mute yourself when not speaking. Unmute to Speak.

3. Raise your virtual hand to speak and

Lower your virtual hand when done speaking.

4. Everyone should get a chance to speak. Once you have spoken, give others a chance to share before you take another turn to speak.

5. Actively listen and try not to interrupt.

6. Show respect for others. Leave judging and making assumptions out.

7. Work together to accomplish our goals.

Join with other groups to celebrate our advances and continue to fight challenges to equality.

Highlight the essential and inseparable roles of decent work and gender equality.

Need to highlight pay gaps especially of women of color:

• All Women’s Equal Pay Day – March 12
• Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Women’s Equal Pay Day – April 3
• LGBTQIA+ Equal Pay Awareness Day – June 13
• Black Women’s Equal Pay Day – July 9
• Moms’ Equal Pay Day – August 7
• Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) Women’s Equal Pay Day – August 28
• Latina Equal Pay Day – October 3
• Native Women’s Equal Pay Day – November 21