Annual Women’s March rally held in Port Jeff Station

Annual Women’s March rally held in Port Jeff Station

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The corner of Route 112 and Route 347 in Port Jeff Station has hosted enough protests that those who have come out every year to demonstrate have dubbed it an unofficial name, “resistance corner.”

On Jan. 19 members of that resistance came out for the 7th Annual Long Island Rising V-Day Flashmob and the 2019 Long Island Women’s March Rally and protested for hours despite the impending cold. Holding signs representing a smorgasbord of progressive talking points, from women’s reproductive rights to ending the current government shutdown, many of those who attended said while the U.S. House of Representatives and New York State Senate turning blue are good changes, major change needs to come from the White House.

“Today we celebrate the women’s wave that stormed the face of the government, and we come out here to show the world in solidarity against a misogynist right wing agenda to demand change,” said Port Jefferson resident and protest organizer Kathy Greene Lahey.

“We come out here to show the world in solidarity against a misogynist right wing agenda to demand change.”

— Kathy Greene Lahey

Lahey works for Long Island Rising, a progressive advocacy group that has helped organize the three Port Jeff protests as well as several others across the Island. The group also collected women’s health products to be distributed to those in need. The protest was held in conjunction with two other women’s marches in Manhattan.

In 2017, after the inauguration of President Donald Trump (R), thousands upon thousands went to Washington, D.C., to protest the 45th president’s inauguration with many other smaller protests popping up all across the country. Since then, the protests have been exasperated by controversy over alleged anti-Semitism among one of the Women’s March original national leaders. The original Port Jeff Station protest in 2017, held in conjunction with the national Women’s March movement, drew a crowd of several thousand. The protest has dwindled to a few hundred this year, yet many of those who came out to protest were as adamant as ever.

Some dressed up for the event. Rachel Cara wore the red shawl and headpiece from the web television series “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

“I’m really upset about the treatment of women, minorities and the LGBT community,” Cara said. “Especially recently with the separation of families, Christine Blasey Ford’s testimonies [about then U.S. Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh] and how she was ignored by Congress.”

Lisa Jackson and her 15-year-old daughter Gloriana attended the protest. Gloriana, who’s in a wheelchair, held a sign that read, “I March to the streets ‘cause I’m willing and I’m able …’”

“It’s a very, very crazy administration, and we can’t have him anymore in our White House,” Jackson said. “We can’t have this divisiveness and separation and misogyny that’s rampant. She should be growing up where her rights are as equal as everyone else’s.”