October 25, 1997
The legacy this commemorates
On October 25, 1997, hundreds of thousands of Black women gathered in Philadelphia for the Million Woman March — a day of unity, repentance, and resolve built from the ground up by everyday organizers rather than national institutions. It stood for self-determination, family, and the dignity of women too often left out of the national conversation.
As the March approaches its 30th anniversary (1997–2027), the Committee commemorates that gathering not with nostalgia, and not with another march, but by handing the microphone back to the people through public dialogue — and by gathering what they share into research that informs the work ahead. The Committee was formed to commemorate the anniversary. It did not organize the 1997 March, and it does not speak for the March or for the women who did.
The term
Economic apartheid
Economic apartheid describes how the basics of a dignified life — affordable housing, healthcare, childcare, safety, and the ability to simply afford to live — are quietly rationed along lines of race, sex, gender, and socioeconomic status. It is rarely written into law, yet it shapes who can stay in their neighborhood, who can see a doctor, and whose children are cared for.
The Committee’s task is to study and document it — to gather testimony and data directly from the people living it, the way a think tank gathers research, so that independent entities can be better informed.
“Every voice is testimony. Every story counts. The agenda belongs to the people who live it.”
The Committee & the Institute
Who the Committee is
The Committee to Commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the 1997 Million Woman March is an independent committee, and a project of The Institute on Economic Apartheid — a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank that collects data and promotes public dialogue, gathering research rather than staging protests. It was formed to commemorate the 1997 March; it is not the March’s original organizer. Through public dialogues and its members — businesses, agencies, organizations, jurisdictions, individuals, and institutions — the Committee is surveying grassroots affordability and the real impact of economic apartheid on residents’ rights, access, and privileges, so that independent entities can be better informed. A standing coalition of those entities is the long-term goal this work is building toward.
Learn more about the Institute at theinstituteoneconomicapartheid.org. Write to the Committee any time at info@committee30thanniversary.com or call (610) 600-1753.
Be part of the 30th anniversary.