Progressives March for Human Rights in Pittsfield
Amelia Gilardi addresses the crowd at Park Square.
The Pittsfield People's March was designed to unite community members, raise awareness, and promote the fundamental rights of all people. It was one of numerous marches across the nation, including in Boston and the annual one (formerly the Women's March) in Washington, D.C.
The marches started in 2017 in response to the first election of Donald Trump, who is set to sworn in for a second term on Monday. Saturday's marchers expressed their fears that the incoming administration will place money and power over the needs of the people.
"For me, the motivation of this march was to make people see that we are all feeling similarly, that we are not isolated in our feelings, and that your neighbor feels like that, too," said march organizer Meg Arvin of Western MA 4 the Future.
"So one, it's not just you thinking this way, and two, you have other people that you can lean on to build that community with to feel like you are not in this by yourself and that you have other people who will be here to support you."
The first march, and its successors, have focused on fears of rights being chipped away, including women's bodily rights, free speech rights, voting rights and civil rights. The first Washington march drew nearly 500,000; Saturday's was estimated at 5,000.
Arvin, who moved from Tennessee a few years ago, said she comes from a state where rights have been taken away and knows what it looks like for people to be desperate for representation.
While recognizing that Massachusetts is more progressive than its southern counterparts, she said the incoming presidency should alarm us all that "everything is up for grabs."
"You are worthy of being pissed off with all of this," the activist told fellow progressives at Park Square, "I'm pissed with you."
"Everything you do counts," Arvin told the crowd.
"Sending an email, making a phone call, sending mass texts, doing the postcarding, voting, standing behind a candidate, shouting into the void about being pissed off. None of us are going to be complacent. Complacency is what got us here."
She said just because Massachusetts is a blue state doesn't mean that it's guaranteed to stay blue.
"You have to fight. Everything we've done and everything we've won has been a fight," Arvin asserted.
"Don't let the people out here with the dog whistles shouting about how we are intolerant left get you down. We are tolerant but we will not put up with abuse or bad behavior or bad policy or bad politicians, bad representation. We deserve better. We know that's why we are here because we care about our community."
Councilor at Large Alisa Costa told attendees to use whatever privilege they have to stand up and make sure they represent people who can't be there.
"We can't just sit here and say 'Well, I disagree and that's it,'" she said.
"We have to call our elected officials. We have to get our friends out to vote, even in local elections because almost everybody who is on the national stage now has at one point won a local election. So please talk to your neighbors even if it is uncomfortable and talk about your values and what you share in those values and why you vote the way that you do."
High schooler Amelia Gilardi said people are marching for different reasons but for the same cause: to defend their rights, freedom, and future.
"We're marching in solidarity with each other, with marginalized groups, and those who feel like their voices aren't heard," she said. "We're marching to remind those in power the change on the issues that matter most to us in Western Mass is happening too slowly or not at all."
Gilardi called for freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom to "love who we love," and freedom to be protected from PCBs, radio frequency radiation, and "everything unfair going on."
She and her mother, Courtney Gilardi, have called for protection from RF radiation since a Verizon cell tower was erected near their home in 2020.
Reflecting on her time in Tennessee, Arvin observed that people are more comfortable being and expressing themselves in Massachusetts.
"I don't want to blanket the South as like, a bunch of intolerance because that's not true," she said, adding that while the commonwealth has its pockets of conservatism, it is a lot more accepted to have a visible difference here.
Tags: march, protests,
