Dear Members and Friends,

I am full of excited energy to help make sure Amendment 4 wins and Harris/Walz win. I hope so many of our feminists win to break the GOP super majority in Tallahassee. When I am done with postcarding for Greater Orlando NOW, I will be phone banking (into FL and swing states) and doing some canvassing. If you can’t canvass, especially if this heat remains so high, please phone bank your heart out. Go to Mobilize and look for phone banks. You can join any group’s phone bank or canvassing activities.  People are  already voting! Let’s make it impossible for Amendment 4 to fail and let’s make sure Trump loses in FL and other swing states.

I am so proud of all the Chapters for their postcarding efforts. It is amazing how successful every Chapter is in getting out postcards. We did 24,000 in August, 12,000 in September, and are now finishing up with 18,000 in October. I am also so proud of all the members and chapters who contributed so we would have enough stamps to send out the September postcards when Floridians Protecting Freedom had a budget cut. We were able to put stamps on all September postcards. Thanks for everyone’s support of these postcarding projects.

We are starting a monthly program to engage members and friends in a variety of topics from movies to panels, e.g. “No One Asked You”. “9 tp 5”. Holiday Bingo, Islamophobia. I hope you will take time to attend. This newsletter has the schedule so far.

I am appalled by what the State is doing related to Sex Ed so have to mention it. We need to fight this in all ways that we can. We have no Sex Ed being taught this year or last because the Department of Ed didn’t approve any schools’ plans for Sex Ed. To be devious, they are not putting anything in writing, but are directing the schools to focus on abstinence (numerous studies show that this doesn’t work and just means more teenage pregnancy), no mention of LGBTQ+, no mention of contraception (more teenage pregnancy; more need for abortion), and I believe no mention of STDs/AIDS. Oh, can’t call out rape, must use sexual assault. Don’t expect consent to be covered.  This approach to Sex Ed is disastrous for girls and boys.

We need your efforts to bring in new members. Help call members to renew. Bring a friend to a Chapter meeting. Support Tabling at Events…

It is hard to see beyond Nov 5. This election is the most important in recent history. I believe that women will save democracy. Even facing the unknown, we know that we have a hard road starting in January with our GOP legislature. We know they will try to pass laws that further harm the people. Their focus is business, money, and power. With this Governor and the Legislature, Project 2025 is already being implemented here. We have to fight even in the face of losing some battles. We are working on a grant for the legislative program. If we get it, it will be a lot easier for members to get to Tallahassee.

We are working on a grant for our Campus NOW Program. We know that the best source for young women members is campuses. Plus, we need to better engage young women in the fight for women’s rights. We hope to give the Chapters an organizer to work selected schools. We will also be working a grant for period poverty. I am not sure what form that will take.

October and the first week of November are very busy to ensure Harris/Walz, Amendment 4, and all feminists WIN.

We are so very sorry for everyone who has been impacted by Helene.  We hope you get the resources you need to recover.

As the climate crisis escalates, and social inequities persist, we are rising for bold systems change and transformational leadership to stop further destruction in our communities and Mother Earth. Women, feminists, and gender-diverse leaders are at the forefront of our movements and solutions for food sovereignty, Indigenous rights, Rights of Nature, fossil fuel resistance, feminist and new economies, and so much more. Our voices and solutions have to be numerous and loud, in the streets.  We can't let them ignore the issue or claim it is a hoax.

WECAN is delivering a call to action, demanding governments declare a climate emergency. We are challenging governments, financial institutions, and corporations to stop extractive and exploitative practices, and rapidly pivot towards a Just Transition. We will not stop fighting for Mother Earth.

“Our community is experiencing an ongoing crisis created by infrastructural collapse and the profound failure of capitalism to value and sustain life. No state or federal aid has yet reached Asheville, but all around us we’re seeing regular people acting autonomously to address immediate needs and meet one another with care.”

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, chaired by Governor Otto Kerner, Jr of Illinois (center, at head of table) released its report in March 1968. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Clarence, Mary, and Robert Bryant

To the contrary, the commission argued that the crush of immigrants occurred when the boom of industrialization was creating unskilled jobs more quickly than they could be filled. African-Americans, on the other hand, arrived as industrialization wound down and the supply of unskilled jobs plummeted. Also, racial discrimination limited African-Americans’ ability to escape from poverty.

Moreover, the report deplored a common reaction to riots: arming police officers with more deadly weapons to use in heavily populated urban neighborhoods. Its primary recommendation was “a policy which combines ghetto enrichment with programs designed to encourage integration of substantial numbers of Negroes into the society outside the ghetto.”

Both the Kerner Commission and Newsweek proposed aggressive government spending to provide equal opportunities to African-Americans, and each won praise from African-American leaders and white liberals. Even so, the president of the United States was not a fan.

Johnson faced no pressure to respond to Newsweek, but it is rare for a president to offer no public endorsement of a report produced by his own hand-picked commission. Still, that’s what LBJ did.

The president had chosen moderate commission members because he believed they would support his programs, seek evidence of outside agitation, and avoid assigning guilt to the very people who make or break national politicians—the white middle class. The report blindsided him. He had suggested that Communist agitation fired up the riots and to his dismay, the report disagreed, asserting that the riots “were not caused by, nor were they the consequences of, any organized plan or ‘conspiracy.’” And the commission rejected another common allegation: the charge that irresponsible journalists inflamed ghetto neighborhoods.

Despite Johnson’s feelings, or perhaps because of them, the report became big news. “Johnson Unit Assails Whites in Negro Riots,” read a headline in the New York Times. Rushed into print by Bantam Books, the 708-page report became a best-seller, with 740,000 copies sold in a few weeks. The Times featured front-page articles about the report every day in the first week following its release. Within a few days, both CBS and NBC aired documentaries about the ties between race and poverty.

Backlash was immediate. Polls showed that 53 percent of white Americans condemned the claim that racism had caused the riots, while 58 percent of black Americans agreed with the findings. Even before the report, white support for civil rights was waning. In 1964, most Northern whites had backed Johnson’s civil rights initiatives, but just two years later, polls showed that most Northern whites believed Johnson was pushing too aggressively.

White response to the Kerner Commission helped to lay the foundation for the law-and-order campaign that elected Richard Nixon to the presidency later that year. Instead of considering the full weight of white prejudice, Americans endorsed rhetoric that called for arming police officers like soldiers and cracking down on crime in inner cities.

Both the Kerner Commission Report and the Newsweek package called for massive government spending.

When John F. Kennedy declared that an American would reach the moon by the end of the 1960s, even Republicans lined up behind him. In 1968, as they proposed an ambitious cure for racial inequality, Kerner Commission members probably heard echoes of JFK’s words: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Indeed, the United States was prosperous enough to reach for the moon; nevertheless, Pretzer says, “The Johnson administration would not shift resources from the war in Vietnam to social reform, and Congress would not agree to tax increases. Further, state legislatures routinely blunted the local impact of federal actions.”

Ultimately, going to the moon was far easier than solving the nation’s racial issues. Politically, spending billions on space travel was more saleable than striving to correct racial inequality. Since the arrival of the first African slaves in North America early in the 17th-century, prejudice, often supported by law, has circumscribed the experiences of African-Americans.

Even when the first black president sat in the White House, lethal police attacks on young black men created racial turmoil. African-American poverty remains an issue today. In 1969, about one-third of blacks lived below the poverty line. By 2016, that number had dropped to 22 percent as a significant number of African-Americans moved into the middle class with a boost from 1960s legislation, but the percentage of blacks living in poverty is still more than twice as high as the percentage of whites. Blacks now have a louder voice in government, and yet, poverty and disenfranchisement remain. Notwithstanding the Kerner Commission’s optimism about potential change, there have been only scattered efforts over the last 50 years to end America’s racial divide or to address the racial component of poverty in the United States.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM), a time dedicated to shedding light on the devastating impact of domestic violence and advocating for those affected.  As we come together to raise awareness, it's crucial to remember that healing is a long and often challenging journey for domestic violence survivors.  Whether you're looking to support a friend, a family member, or your community at large, here are four meaningful ways to help victims of domestic violence heal during this important month and beyond.

Educate Yourself and Others

Listen Without Judgement

Encourage Professional Support

Raise Awareness and Advocate for Change

The Florida Association of Broadcasters, a lobbying group whose members include many TV and radio news organizations, is sponsoring a controversial ad blitz led by Gov. Ron DeSantis' health secretary. It's aimed at dissuading voters from repealing the state’s six-week abortion ban in November.

Exploring leftist critics of liberal feminism, essentialism, and centrism.

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