On this week’s 51%, we speak with a woman leading a veterans group to the Women’s March on Washington, learn about transgender people’s concerns in a new administration and hear from a woman in the civil rights movement alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m Allison Dunne and this is 51%.
Organizers say that what began as a grassroots effort the day after the November 8 election has grown into something much larger. The January 21 Women’s March on Washington is scheduled the day after Donald Trump is sworn in as the nation’s 45th president. A coalition of veterans, women and men, is one of many groups joining the march in mobilizing to send a message on Trump’s first full day in office. I spoke with one of the organizers, Air Force Veteran Pam Campos-Palma, from New York City, about the importance of gathering her veterans’ contingent for the march.
That was Pam Campos-Palma, an Air Force veteran who served as a geopolitical operations intelligence analyst. She is a leader of Women Vets March on D.C., which will be part of the larger Women’s March on Washington. Campos also is part of Veterans VS Hate, a veterans initiative pushing back against fear mongering and bigotry. Most recently, Campos served as an international consultant for the United Nations Population Fund in Eastern and South Africa, as strategy team lead for a global social venture in Guatemala, and with a poverty-relief non-governmental organization working in Honduras.
Ahead of a new Trump administration, many transgender people have been worried about policy changes affecting their ability to legally change name and gender, and hundreds of attorneys across the country have volunteered to help people file applications. Karen Shakerdge reports.
This story was produced by Side Effects Public Media, a news collaborative covering public health.
Now we go to the archives for a story about Martin Luther King, Jr. The following is a production of This Land Press. For more information, visit thislandpress.com. Mary McAnally shares the story of how she organized the only Freedom Bus from Oklahoma during the Civil Rights Movement. She went with 40 University of Tulsa students and participated in sit-ins in Montgomery, Alabama.
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And that's our show this week. Thanks to Patrick Garrett for production assistance. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock. Our theme music is Glow in the Dark by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio. If you’d like to hear this show again, sign up for our podcast, or visit the 51% archives on our web site at wamc.org. And follow us on Twitter @51PercentRadio
