FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: MELINDA SHELTON, EXT. 767; SHELLEY GOLDEN, EXT. 761

In an unprecedented and bold political strategy, NOW and other progressive groups -- groups that haven't all stood together before -- are building a major march and organizing drive in the pivotal state of California.

The Fight the Right March in San Francisco April 14 will draw airplane delegations of activists from most major cities, especially on the East Coast, and carloads, busloads and students from as far away as Memphis, Tenn., and El Paso, Texas.

Progressives organizing the march are determined to influence the outcome of this year's elections. "While Newt Gingrich says with glee that the winds of political change often blow East from California, we're going to give him a weather update," says NOW President Patricia Ireland. "In California, the Congress and everywhere in between, we're going to quash the right wing's jaded attempt to roll back decades of progress on affirmative action and other key issues. The vehemence of their attacks is an ironic indicator of our success over the years."

The attacks on women and others in the 1990s are often violent. They include a 100 percent increase in murders of lesbians and gay men, racist torching of Black churches at rates not seen since the '60s, a domestic violence epidemic that claimed the lives of more than 1,300 women in 1994 alone and an ongoing campaign of terrorism at abortion clinics.

"When we have to step up security measures where we worship, work and live, a very visceral sense of urgency goads us to speak out against the intolerant rhetoric dominating the Republican primaries," said Ireland.

Right wing rhetorical attacks work hand-in-hand with legislative assaults that include bashing immigrants and women on welfare, stigmatizing people who are HIV positive, gutting brand new programs to stop violence against women, chipping away at Medicare and Medicaid and stymieing protections and fair pay for workers.

A wide range of leading progressive organizations are among the growing list of approximately 500 march endorsers -- the Rainbow Coalition, the YWCA, the National Abortion Rights Action League, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Welfare Rights Union and the Californians for Justice coalition.

"We've sometimes been preoccupied with our own agendas, but this year we're trying hard to say `a threat to you is a threat to me, your freedom is my freedom,' " Ireland says. "And we're also trying to translate that newfound unity into a political reality come November. It's a lot to take on, but we thrive on a good challenge."

In addition to this unique and very real alliance with other groups, the march represents another first in the history of the modern feminist movement. It is the first time a major national protest is targeting extremist opponents and taking on their attacks on all fronts, rather than championing a particular issue, such as reproductive rights or constitutional equality.

"We face common enemies who use divide-and-conquer tactics to try to make us forget not only our common history and daily reality, but our common vision for the future," says NOW's Ireland, who will lead the organization in marking its 30th anniversary later this year.

To organize this national mass action, NOW has deployed and hired eight full-time staff members who operate out of a new West Coast campaign office in San Francisco. Telephones there ring off the hook like a public TV telethon. Two activists from Madison, Wisc., need low-cost housing. A local volunteer says she'll bring friends along on an afternoon of leafletting. A coalition partner offers a good list for phone banking.

NOW members called for the march in California primarily out of concern for the anti-affirmative action measure on the ballot there. Their vote came during NOW's annual national conference last July in Columbus, Ohio.