March in Ukiah Jan. 18 visualized as a community coming together

UKIAH, CA., 1/13/25 — On Saturday, Jan. 18, women and their allies will come together to advocate for reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, equity for marginalized communities and other social and environmental justice issues. The march, publicized both as a women’s march and a people’s march, will begin at 12 p.m. at the Mendocino County Courthouse in downtown Ukiah, before marchers walk together to Alex Thomas Plaza. At the plaza, musicians, live speakers and women’s advocacy organizations will offer information on how to get involved in local actions.

The march, sponsored by the Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition, Cloud Forest Institute, Community Action Alliance and Mendocino Gaggle of Raging Grannies, invites women and allies from the Mendocino County community to come together to advocate for women’s rights and to organize collectively for social justice and equity. 

“We do appreciate our male allies. But since this is a women’s event, we are having all female speakers,” said Lynda McClure, a member of the Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition in an interview. “We will be talking about healthcare, Gaza, education, all of the things we are concerned about that impact our lives daily.”

McClure has been involved in activism for decades, beginning her career as a union representative for the Service Employees International Union, where she helped workers navigate labor laws and employee rights. In a similar vein, McClure hopes the Ukiah Women’s March will foster an atmosphere of hope and collective action rather than focus on despair. 

“We are clear that our message is positive; we want to speak truth to the issues without invoking hate for the other. We know the mood of the country is divided,” McClure said. “But regardless of who someone voted for, we all live here, and we are a community. We have more in common than not.”

The Ukiah Women’s March is a sister demonstration to the National Women’s March, which began as a collective response to the inauguration of then -President Donald Trump. The first march was initially inspired by a Facebook post from Hawaii resident Teresa Shook, who proposed a march to protest the policies of the president-elect and advocate for women’s rights. Soon after, thousands of people expressed interest, which led to the official Women’s March in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, 2017, considered one of the largest single-day protests in American history, with millions marching in the streets of the Capitol. 

McClure shares a similar vision for Mendocino County, hoping to unite the community to advocate for equal rights for all. 

“We’d really like to focus on our common ground in the coming years, rather than foster dissent and division,” she added. “Even though topics like Gaza and climate change aren’t uplifting, we can try to address them in a way that isn’t fostering hate. We are all in this together, so the intent is to have a positive tone about how we interact around difficult issues.”

Performers and speakers at the Ukiah Women’s March will include musician Wendy Dewitt, who plays boogie woogie and blues music; Jackie Orozco, a local activist who will speak on immigrant rights; Heather Criss, a recent addition to the Ukiah City Council; Troyle Tognoli, who has led the organizing efforts for the Black Lives Matter unit of Mendocino County; and Linda Helland, who has worked at the Mendocino County Department of Public Health and the Department of Education. 

The Ukiah Women’s March will begin at 12 p.m. on Jan. 18 at the Mendocino County Courthouse. For more information about the event or to contact the organizers, click on this link.