A mid-January Arctic blast pushed the Colorado Springs Women’s / People’s March speeches on online, but the in-person march continued despite the frigid temperatures.
The march was scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 18. The organizers transitioned the scheduled speeches from Pikes Peak area activists to a Zoom meeting and met at 11:15 a.m. Bancroft Park in Old Colorado City for the march.
“Everything is under attack,” activist Zuri Horowitz said in her opening statment on Zoom. “Thank you for coming out. I am so grateful for your solidarity.”
Horowitz reminded everyone attending that the Women’s / People’s March movement advocates for reproductive rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, civil rights, immigrant rights and human rights.
She also opened the meeting with recognizing indigenous tribes of the Pikes Peak region and several trailblazers of Colorado Springs women’s history: Fannie Mae Duncan, who ran an integrated jazz club which funded tuition for students and research for sickle cell anemia; Helen Hunt Jackson, advocate for indigenous people; Mary Lynn Makepeace, the first female mayor of Colorado Springs; Dr. Susan Anderson, known for helping her neighbors survive the 1918 pandemic; and Julia Holmes, the first recorded woman to summit Pikes’ Peak in 1858.
“I want to acknowledge that we stole this land from indigenous tribes, including the Ute, Kiowa, Chicorilla, Apache, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Anazasi (Pueblo), Eastern Shoshoni, Clovis and Folsom,” Horowitz said. “And the many brave women from Colorado who did not make the history books, including many indigenous women.”
Horowitz said she believes he answer for those experiencing political depression in the aftermath of the 2024 election is community activism.
“We are in a very difficult time and the only response is showing up over and over again,” she said. “The only way forward is to right back against fascism. Fight for good policy, fight for good politicians that aren’t owned by billionaires and corporations.”
She encouraged everyone who is not politically involved to start volunteering monthly for one hour with organizations like the League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region and Centro de la Familia.
“We need your help,” Horowitz said. “Money will not get us out of this, only people will.
“Only your passion and solidarity will ensure that we have human rights, that women can vote, that trans people can access medical care and participate in sports in their community, that immigrants are safe, that we have affordable housing, that workers are protected and paid livable wages, that we comprehensively address climate change.”
Affordable housing and transportation activist June Waller, who has been advocating for 60 years, addressed those attending the Zoom meeting. She said she was glad to see the crowd gathering even in an online space.
“It is so great to see this many people on one call, it’s just wonderful,” she said.
Waller said the current focus of her activism is helping single parents.
“That’s where my focus is, especially for this year,” she said. “I would like to see what can we do to help those families, so they have more access to what is going on and feel that they are part of our community, feel that we can help them grow their children.”
“I have a mantra that says, ‘Look back, but work forward,'” she said. “If you have more to give, please give more than one hour a month and look for and pay attention to who is here, who is in the community and how can we help them more to become more progressive in how they think, make sure that they have what they need especially for their children. I think there’s enough of us when I look at the amount of people that are here, we can do so much more because we have the strength and the bodies and the minds.”
Horowitz reminded the group that school board elections and city council elections will be coming soon.
“Make sure you get progressive candidates elected,” she said. “You know how bad the school boards are right now, we really need to do the work helping them get the word out with our family and friends, not just doorknocking, but letting people know these are the people that will really care about student and won’t bankrupt the schools.”
The next speaker was Steph Vigil, former district 16 Colorado House Representative and El Paso County’s first queer representative. She helped transit companies rebound from the loss of fares they sustained during COVID quarantine, Horowitz said.
“Everybody should leave this with an action item, something that you can do,” Vigil said. “It will be so much better for all of us getting through the potential drudgery that is ahead. I know we’re all sad, I know we’re all angry, and the reality of crisis points is that you’re gonna be kicked when you’re already down, and you’re going to need strength and resources the most when they’ve just been stripped away from you, so take a deep breath and we all just need to reach and find one thing.”
She said that progressive voters need to make sure they vote for local candidates that align with their views, not just those running for national elections.
“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz took almost 52 percent of the vote in my house district. 51.9 something,” Vigil said. “I ended up missing re-election by three individual votes. It is abundantly clear that the one thing that cost us this seat is down ballot drop off these are people who voted for Harris and Walz at the top of the ticket, maybe they voted for one more office, and then they skipped everything else.”
Conservatives tend to vote a straight party ticket, she said.
“Republicans are so good at the messaging and so good at the optics that they end up getting the better of people in the election, even though they govern so poorly,” Vigil said. “It is more strategic, it is interestingly more collectivist and something I would hope those of us more to the left would do, and we don’t and we need to figure out why.”
Some of her political goals are keeping control of the Colorado state house and state senate and electing a more progressive governor in the next election, she said.
“We will not get those things if people only vote the top of the ticket and skip everything else,” Vigil said. “Your state elected officials are some of the most accessible that you have in your field of elected officials that are available to you. you should be able to reach them and if they don’t answer to you, you need to demand that they do and we need to get better ones.”
The third speaker, Jacqueline Jaramillo, executive director of Centro de la Familia, an organization that offers behavioral health and advocacy services to the Latinx community, said she has been an activist alongside her mother since the ’60s.
“It’s an honor to be with all of you fierce activists, allies and community leaders on this cold morning to march for justice, equality and the dignity of all people,” she said. “As a Latina and someone who has fought alongside countless others for civil rights, women’s rights and human rights, I know this fight is not new.”
Jaramillo said she was born and raised in Colorado Springs as a third-generation resident and her mother worked with June Waller in activism for years.
“Today, in the face of the political and social turmoil, we find ourselves called to rise again,” she said. “We stand here for all women, but let us not shy away from acknowledging the challenges faced by women of color. That remains distinct and deeply rooted. We often face barriers that silence our voices, diminish our struggles and overlook our contributions. Our fight is not just for a seat at the table, it’s for the transformation of the table itself to reflect justice, inclusion and equality.”
Infighting can often tear apart activist groups, Jaramillo said, adding that it’s important to stay united.
“Today, I call upon you to not only march with your feet, but march with your hearts,” she said. “We have more in common than we have differences. When we go to the table and we stand up for people’s rights, we give a voice to those who have no voice.”
Talking through issues within activist communities is important, Horowitz said at the end of Jaramillo’s speech, but then the community needs to “show up for each other.”
“We’re not going to always get it perfectly, but we keep going,” she said. “We keep working to try to come to better solutions and part of it is the discomfort of having to have those conversations, but that also makes better policy and makes us do a better job.”
Former D49 school board candidate Candice Lehmann reminded the attendees that The League of Women Voters has been a nonpartisan grassroots organization whose goal is to ensure everybody is represented in our democracy for the last 105 years.
“I’m wearing my t-shirt that says, ‘Voting is my superpower,” she said. “Like what Stephanie said, voting is very key and important.”
The League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region hosts meet and greet candidate forums, helps people get to the polls and maintains a Vote 411 website that explains issues to voters, Lehmann said.
“We are glad to be here today to support this Women’s march, whether you’re outside or inside, have multiple layers on, or are in your pajamas,” she said. “Bottom line here is, all women everywhere should have the right to control their bodies and love who they want to love. We will address all challenges to these rights.”
“We support women’s rights, trans rights, everybody’s rights to their own bodily autonomy to make their own decisions,” Horowitz said at the end of Lehmann’s speech.
Disability rights activist Alyssa Furia’s speech had vivid imagery that sounded like a spoken word poem.
“Since its founding, this country has struggled to find its identity, to marry its stated values with its actual laws and practices,” she said. “There’s pain in understanding that without consent, we have been made complict in a great crime. We are flowing into the balance, weighed against one another in accordance with the values said to bear fruit. We have deified our democracy into a dim awareness.
“We are not bound as they are by the limits of imagination, thinking or questions. Today, we pursue and make these changes a reality in service of a larger mandate.”
For those who want to visit the state capitol in Denver, the downtown bus station in Colorado Springs has route that will take you directly there, June Waller said.
“Let us be seen at the Capitol, let them know that there are people from southern Colorado that are just as interested in what’s going on,” she said. “This ride for seniors is only $9 each way, the ride is two hours, so bring reading material.”
Horowitz asked attendees to end the Zoom meeting with a chant in English and Spanish: “The people united will never be defeated ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!”
She asked everyone who was able to continue the event in person at Bancroft Park in about an hour.
“We’ll see how many people are there,” she said. “If it’s safe for you to be there in community with everybody. If not, don’t worry about it, I don’t want anyone to be unsafe trying to get there.”
Horowitz said anyone who wants to get more politically involved should email her for a list of volunteer opportunities.
Eleanor Skelton 