Visit Women’s March MN at the Island of Discarded Women. We’ll be in the lobby before and after the show helping people get registered and/or get informed about the upcoming Mid Term Elections.

It’s a special night of a live broadcast of a podcast that lifts of women. Sue Scott and her guests share powerful stories, original music and inspiring conversation! + Food & drink!
The special guest is Marcie Rendon. Marcie is a member of the White Earth Nation and an author, playwright, poet and community arts activist. She is an award-winning author of a fresh new murder mystery series and will share with us excerpts from a new powerful play she is writing that shines a light on the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Musical guest will be Jaspar Lepak, with new music that is sure to inspire action.

Tickets for the show: $20

Doors open at 5:30 to purchase Food + Drink at your table (service continues during show!)
Show time: 7:00 to 8:30pm
At the Woman’s Club of Minneapolis!
410 Oak Grove St. Minneapolis, MN 55403
https://www.islandofdiscardedwomen.com/

Join us to build the 2022 Blue wave, just like 2018 and 2020!

1. #BeAVoter

2. Encourage others to #BeAVoter

Come visit us and/or volunteer at the WMM booth on West Broadway at Open Streets on September 10!

Volunteers Needed!

We are looking for volunteers to help us at the WMM booth. If you've been looking for an easy fun way to get involved - this is it! Shifts will be:

· 10:00am-12:30pm

· 12:00pm-2:30pm

· 2:30pm-5:00pm

You can work one shift or more. Any necessary training will be provided. Please contact us at admin@womensmarchmn.com if you are interested and let us know which shift works best for you. Thank you!

Join us to demand that Minnesota be a leader in securing reproductive freedom with a day of action on Sunday, July 17 starting at 11:00 am at St. Paul College with a march to the Capitol at noon.
Our Future: March for Abortion Access is an action for everyone to show our leaders and our country what Minnesotans really stand for in this historic moment. Join us!

Find a March For Our Lives event near you (6/11):

• Minneapolis - March For Our Lives Rally, 10-11.55am - (get more info)

• St. Cloud - March For Our Lives, 10.30-2pm

• Rochester - March For Our Lives,11-1pm

• Brainerd - March For Our Lives, 12-2pm

• Albert Lea - March For Our Lives, 1-2pm

• Moorhead - MFOL: It Is NOT Okay, 3pm

• Eau Claire - March For Our Lives, 3-5pm

Find more MFOL events across the U.S. this Saturday.

Twin Cities Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee have shared a Call to Action…

This April 13th, 2022, Department of Corrections officer Christopher Wendover sexually assaulted Angela Jackson, in solitary confinement, groping her breasts and vaginal area while she was in handcuffs, and threatening her with violence not to tell. Another male guard was present, and while he didn’t directly intervene he did press the panic button, which ended the assault. Angela Jackson reported the information to the people at Shakopee prison and the police. The entire incident should be captured on prison video.

The Department of Corrections has closed this investigation without firing the officer, and until another incarcerated person complained, had officer Wendover staring at Mrs. Jackson every day in the cafeteria. Shakopee Prison has a history of sexual and other abuse, particularly after adding male staff in 1992, including lack of accountability for white officers. Just a few years ago, Sergeant Boegeman was fired from Shakopee for similar misconduct but was rehired in arbitration, so he continues to work at the facility, as well as others implicated.

These are also Department of Corrections wide issues, from failing to stop sexual assault or violence, to holding the mentally ill to solitary confinement, to policy 301.083 which allows the use of segregation for “overflow”, to holding people who are suicidal or a 'threat' naked in "wet cells". Shakopee prison also has bought but refuses to use an airport style body scanner to prevent the regular strip searching of incarcerated people, a procedure many consider sexual assault. Note that a majority of incarcerated women are survivors of sexual violence.

Angela Jackson needs your help via phone call and email --

1. Call the Scott County Attorney 952-496-8240 and tell them you believe it's important that they prosecute officer Christopher Wendover, Police Case Number 22007875.

2. Call or email the Commissioner of Corrections paul.schnell@state.mn.us 651-361-7226 and tell him to fire officer Wendover and ensure Angela Jackson is not retaliated against in her job, treatment, and work release placement. Also:

   1. Ask him what he will do to end this pattern of abuse against vulnerable adults in his care

   2. Tell him to start using the body scanner at Shakopee Prison to prevent strip searches which many consider to be sexual assaults, and to invest in them at all facilities

   3. Tell him to medically release the mentally ill instead of sending them to solitary confinement

3. Finally, call the Attorney General’s office and ask them to investigate the pattern of abuse of in the Department of Corrections and Shakopee Prison in particular: 651-296-3353 -- they can contact us at tc.iwoc@gmail.com.

4. Sign the petition

We will do our best to update the list – but things are happening quickly.

Minnesota
Eagan, Protect Reproductive Rights 5/14, 10-11am
St. Cloud - Bans Off Our Bodies March - 10-12pm

Duluth - Rally to Protect Rights for Abortion Access - 12pm
St. Paul - Rally for Abortion Access - 12-1pm

Brainerd - Bans Off Our Bodies - 12-2pm

Just outside MN
Dubuque, IA - 11am
Cedar Rapids, IA - 11am-1pm
Grand Forks, ND - 10-12noon
Fargo, ND 5.45-7.30pm

For all the events happening across the US

Thanks to those who joined us for Time to Act Monday night (May 9). It was a great crowd.

In less than an hour we were able to make a difference. We share our notes for those who can take a minute join the effort after the fact using the instruction sheets below to make it easy for you to know who to contact and what to say. If you can personalize the message, even better, but the following will get your started:

· Patients' Right to Know

· Women's Health Protection Act

· Equal Rights Amendment

Thank you for your activism on these important issues

Join us on Wednesday, May 18th at 6:30 p.m. CT
Register now!

We are excited to hear from Bernadine Joselyn who just spent three weeks at the Polish-Ukrainian border welcoming and processing evacuees fleeing Russia’s war with Ukraine. Bernadine, who is director of Public Policy and Engagement at Blandin Foundation, lived and worked in Russia 20 years ago with the U.S. Foreign Service and other international development organizations, and now lives in Grand Rapids, MN with her Ukrainian husband.

Bernadine heard about the opportunity to help and quickly found herself in the evacuee center at Korcwoza, about 20 kilometers from the actual border

Now is a good time to tell our legislators what we want. Here are Actions from the MN-Leg Action team to make a difference. Click on an Action to get to the full instruction sheet on how to take the action - the background to the bill and issue, who to contact and what to say. If you can personalize the message, even better.

• Elections

• Climate

Thank you for your activism!

The Minnesota Legislature returns from spring break this week. It’s a good time to help them focus on what we want to see happen. So we will be meeting online Tuesday evening to go through actions and scripts to contact legislators on several bills. Please join us, especially if contacting legislators is new to you.

• April 19 - 6pm

• Register now!

Calls for Tuesday:

• Maternal Health

• Human Rights

• Equal Rights Amendment

• No Knock Warrants

Last week was Black Maternal Health Week. In its honor, the MN State House Black Maternal Health Caucus hosted the “Expecting Better” roundtable. MN legislators and health advocates addressed Black maternal mortality and morbidity disparities in MN. The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among wealthy nations. In the U.S., the rates are higher for people of color, due to structural racism and lack of access to healthcare. In MN, Black people are more than twice as likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white people. The participants in the roundtable gave powerful accounts of how racism in healthcare had impacted them personally, as well as other people in their lives.

A contingency from Women’s March Minnesota (WMM) had a night out with the Island of Discarded Women. The Island is a podcast that is recorded live at the Women’s Club in Minneapolis. The show is hosted by Sue Scott, whose work with the Prairie Home Companion is well known. It features storytelling, music and a conversation with accomplished women who working to make the world better, often by lifting up other women or others in need of lift.

On April 10, Sue was joined by Dr. Artika Tyner, is the director of the Center on Race, Leadership and Social Justice at the University of St. Thomas and the founder of Planting People Growing Justice and musical guest, powerhouse singer/songwriter Rachel Kurtz.

A group of Women’s March MN members are planning to go see Sue Scott's Island of Discarded Women LIVE Show and Podcast at the Woman's Club of Minneapolis on April 10. It’s an evening of empowering stories, music, and conversation with or without dinner and drinks. The plan is to each get our own tickets from the Island of Discarded Women website – but reply to this email by April 7 if you plan to come and we’ll try to sit all together. (It’s tabled seating.)

Just the facts:

• Show Tickets are $20 (Buy online)

• DATE: Sunday April 10

• TIME: Doors open at 5:30pm for purchasing dinner + drinks at your table (Service continues throughout the show. Menu includes Vegan and GF options.)

• Show from 7:00 to 8:30pm

• PLACE: The Lounge at the Woman's Club of Minneapolis, 410 Oak Grove St., Minneapolis, 55403

• COVID PROTOCOLS: Island of Discarded Women will continue to require proof of vaccination, or a negative Covid test. Audience members are encouraged to wear masks except when dining.

Let us know you’re coming, if you want to sit with other WMM members. (Reply to this message or email mailto:admin@womensmarchmn.com)

There’s still time to join us tonight (March 29) at 6pm or use the information below to act in your own time.

We’re going try to get through an ambitious five actions:

• ERA (Equal Rights Amendment)

• Patients Right to Know (Abortion)

• Office for Missing and Murdered African American Women

• No Know Warrants (Public Safety)

• Frontline Worker Compensation

Still ready to act? Check out this longer list of Calls to Action on important legislation at the Capitol right now. This list is put together weekly by the MN Legislative Action team that we are part of. Pls share as you want.