Black Women's March organizer: 'United States of Amnesia' won't move us forward

Two days after she tried unsuccessfully to organize the Black Women’s March across the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, Vanessa Green was considering changing her phone number.

Green said she has been inundated with calls since Saturday — most laced with misogynist and racial epithets, some calling for violence.

“Die!”

“They should have shot you!”

Then there were a series of calls late into the night where the caller would repeatedly hang up without saying a word.

Black Women's March: Police block protesters from crossing bridge

EDITORIAL: We champion the organizers' right to free expression, but safety must come first

Saturday's march, organized by 100Sistas and Black Lives Matter Hudson Valley, was declared an "unlawful assembly" by New York State Police and the marchers were met by dozens of state, county and Tarrytown police who blocked off the entrance to Exit 9 in Tarrytown.

The march was deemed unsafe by the Thruway Authority because construction on the new bridge's pedestrian sidewalk has not been completed. After a rally in a CVS parking lot in Tarrytown and a march on a closed-off Route 119, they drove to Nyack for the second half of the march.

Reasons to march

Green said the march was about bringing attention to the everyday struggles and worries of black families, from police brutality to equal access to care, to the safety of black transgender women, whose average life expectancy is 35 years or younger.

“We can’t live with that kind of stress every day. It takes a toll on you physically, emotionally, spiritually,” said Green, who grew up in Spring Valley and now lives in Orange County. “We want our kids to have the same rights as other kids when they leave the house. We want them to be safe. A lot of black mothers feel that our sons are not safe.”

Rhonda Payne of Spring Valley, who was one of the marchers, talked about the internalization of an inferiority complex that black children are faced with at an early age.

The consequences of playing music too loudly or walking with a BB gun are vastly different for white and black kids, she said. Trying to keep their kids safe by telling them how to deal with law enforcement officers is often a soul-crushing exercise.

Part of the goal of the march, the organizers say, is to make people understand that there is a privilege that comes from being white. That includes not having to talk to their kids about “sundown towns,” a Jim Crow-era-practice where all-white municipalities enforced restrictions excluding people of non-white races via some combination of laws, intimidation and violence.

In Rockland County, the duo categorized places such as Pearl River and Stony Point as “sundown towns.”

“We tell our kids not to show up there after sunset if they don’t want to get in trouble,” said Green, who works at a New City nonprofit and runs CallBlackLine, a crisis hotline run by a group of volunteers from around the Hudson Valley and New York who are trained in listening to people who may have had an interaction with law enforcement or vigilantes.

She talked about a black visiting nurse who was given a job in Pearl River. She refused and instead opted to work in Newburgh, saying it was safer for her.

The supervisor was puzzled that she would consider Newburgh — ranked 10th most dangerous place to live in the United States according to 2012 FBI crime data — safer than Pearl River.

“He didn’t understand that it was safer for her,” Payne said. “No one would be pulling her over for no reason.”

Trump unifies marchers

One positive change Payne and Green have been inspired by in the year since the election of President Donald Trump has been a sense of camaraderie with “white co-conspirators,” white folks who stay on the front lines during rallies and are the first ones to deal with the police.

“The devil brought us together,” Green said with a laugh.

Indeed, at Saturday’s Black Women’s March, Payne estimated that almost 70 percent of the participants were white.

Some of them pushed and shoved the police officers.

If black women had attempted that, the outcome would likely have been very different, Payne said.

The fact that two black organizations had organized the march was the reason, they believe, for such heightened security.

Police, however, expressed safety concerns in a statement the day before the march:

"The Mario M. Cuomo Bridge carries an interstate highway with heavy traffic volumes traveling at high speeds, and also remains an active construction zone. This type of event presents significant safety issues for the marchers, drivers and members of law enforcement."

The authorities automatically think of much gatherings as a “terrorist” group, said Payne, a social worker and activist.

“We come in peace and all we want to do is have the same rights as everyone else,” she said. “That’s it.”

More resources

Another area Payne would like to see a change is more black women getting hired in the social work and counseling services. She compared it to bilingual services offered to the Hispanic population in the U.S.

“Black people go through a lot of trauma. We should have more professionals who can relate to them,” Payne said. “It’s not that there are no qualified black people, it’s that they are kept in low-paying jobs and not promoted.”

The CallBlackLine website lists the demands of black women marching from Westchester, Ulster, Orange and Rockland counties. One item on the list: "transform and dismantle the police."

Greene clarified the demand saying it meant dismantling the old police attitude toward black citizens.

"I want them to stop funding community policing and start investing in our communities. We need after-school programs that stay open past 5 p.m. Most parents don't get back home before 8," she said.

NAACP support

While some of the bigger advocacy organizations such as the NAACP didn’t join the march officially, there is still plenty of support.

Spring Valley NAACP President Willie Trotman said he could not attend the march on Saturday because he was traveling, but he said he did speak to some of the marchers on his way back in Nyack.

He said he respects Green, whose family he has known for many years.

“I thought they did a good job and it was held it in a very peaceful manner. I thought bringing women from different walks of life, from Black Lives Matter to the gay and lesbian communities, etc. — they were energized and I support it,” Trotman said. “It’s important that they stand up for women’s rights. All of us should be standing up for women’s rights.”

What's next

In the coming months, Green and Payne plan to march on other bridges in the Hudson Valley, including the Bear Mountain, Newburgh-Beacon, Mid-Hudson and Kingston-Rhinecliff bridges.

They said they would not be seeking a permit to march across any of the bridges.

“America has amnesia about a lot of things. I call it the United States of Amnesia. Our history was founded on civil disobedience, whether it was the Tea Party or the civil rights movement, so I don’t believe you need to ask for permission,” Green said.

Payne was more pointed: "Do they have permits to treat us the way they treat us every day? Do they have permits to kill unarmed black people?"

How to join

To get involved with Hudson Valley Black Lives Matter, like the organization's Facebook page or email blmrocklandorange@gmail.com with your name, phone number and question.

Twitter: @SwapnaVenugopal

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is the new audience strategist and a member of the Editorial Board for The Journal News/lohud, part of the USA Today Network. She also serves as ombudswoman for the paper.