A public meeting to organize participation in the march on Washington was recently held in Atlanta. At the meeting, which drew 50 people, one of the local co-directors for the April 25 mobilization, Loretta Ross, announced the formation of New Voices for Reproductive Freedom, which is concentrating on building the march in Black and Latino communities in Atlanta and other parts of Georgia.

In New York City, some 800 buses have already been reserved, march organizers report. Local chapters of the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and numerous campus groups have been holding regular planning meetings to involve new forces.

A group of young women at one of the weekly NOW-sponsored meetings volunteered to leaflet at the March 20 peace rally. They passed out hundreds of flyers and stickers there. Volunteers reported afterward that many of the demonstrators were students who said they were already involved in campus groups in the region planning to send buses to the march—from the University of Connecticut to New York University.

In Pittsburgh, La’Tasha Mayes, an organizer of the march, reported that local building efforts are getting a good response. Many women’s rights supporters are angry at government measures that limit access to abortion and want to speak out for a woman’s right to choose. Addressing a March 19 Militant Labor Forum, Mayes said that cuts in Medicare funding for abortion and the closure of clinics “impact women of color the most.”

On March 16 a gathering to mobilize Black women for the march took place in East Liberty, a Black neighborhood in Pittsburgh. The featured speaker was Malika Redmond, of the National Center for Human Rights Education, who is traveling across the country to build the march among women of oppressed nationalities.

Arlene Rubinstein in Atlanta and Cindy Jaquith in Pittsburgh contributed to this article.  
 
 
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