Still Marching After All These Years! We Won’t Go Back!
By Jan Perkins, Senior Partner, Management Partners (former city manager)
On January 21st, a beautiful sunny day, I participated in the Orange County Women’s March in downtown Santa Ana along with a number of friends and over 20,000 other people of all ages and cultures, some in wheelchairs, and mothers and fathers pushing strollers. In the peaceful assembly I saw many creative signs, of which one of my favorites was, “Still Marching After All These Years! We Won’t Go Back!” — being carried by an 84 year old woman who was there with her daughter. I was out there because I share the sentiment that women’s rights and human rights are precious and are to be honored and protected. In our local governments we’ve made great strides in the past several decades opening up opportunities to women, encouraging women to aim for the top job, and making a positive difference in our profession – but we have a long way to go!
I also marched to honor my ancestors. On my mother’s side, the Fretz family came over from Germany around 1720 fleeing religious persecution — they were Mennonites. Our family history book (written about 1880) says, “they were given the alternative of connecting themselves with the state church or leave the country….they chose to leave the land of their birth, the home of their kindred and friends, the graves of their ancestors, and all the hallowed associations of the country of their nativity, and found for themselves a home in a strange and far-off land where they could worship God under their own vine and fig tree, according to the dictates of their own conscience without fear of molestation……And thus, we are their descendants, citizens of this great liberty loving country.” I am thankful they made that arduous journey. I marched for them and all other immigrants who have made our country what it is and what it will be.
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