BRATTLEBORO — I want to start this rally by thinking of the hundreds of marches across the country.
We're here today to stand in our power in the final days before the election. To remember that it's not just about the two people on the ballot. That the future of this country sits with each of us.
Today, while we stand here in solidarity, there are women all over the state checking in ballots as town clerks, there are women running for office and working on campaigns, there are women caring for loved ones, and there are women working to pay their rent.
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We are standing today in solidarity with all people who seek justice on land that is the ancestral and present land of the Elnu Abenaki. We acknowledge this not just to recognize the bloody history of colonialism on this land but also to celebrate the people who lived here long before Europeans.
The Abenaki were not just displaced by forts and wars and colonial disease but in the 20th century by eugenics at the hands of white Vermonters. Abenaki women were forcibly sterilized in this state into the 1970s. So when we talk about reproductive justice, let us remember that.
And today, indigenous women are still disproportionately affected by all kinds of violence - so much so that there is an acronym, MMIWG, meaning “missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.”
You see, history casts a long shadow, and the effects of the violent displacement of Native peoples from these lands are still playing out on the bodies of Native women.
In the U.S., Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to experience violence than any other demographic. One in three Native women is raped during her life, and 86 percent of these assaults are perpetrated by non-Natives.
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So today, on this land, with all of you holding the stories of all of our sisters, let us remember the women before us those who fought in public - like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Emma Goldberg, and Assata Shakur - and those who fought in private.
Let us remember that we can fight - at the ballot box, in the halls of power, in our living rooms, and in the streets.