Wednesday Wisdom, Inspiration, Motivation for Women, Females, Women Entrepreneurs
Women TIES, LLC official sign designed by Mary Francis Millet
Today seemed the perfect time to repost the Wednesday Wisdom I wrote and shared on January 23, 2017, recapping my trip with 110 women to the Women’s March on DC. I organized two buses and invited any woman to go with me to remind the new President that women make up 52% of the population. It was a peaceful and significant event in our 110 lives. This week’s announcement of Kamala Harris becoming the Democratic Presidential nominee inspired me to share this with you again. #WomenRising.
Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham and some of the women who joined her in DC in 2017
January 23, 2017: “She believed she could, so she did,” is the saying on the bracelet on my left arm given to me by a friend, worn to the Women’s March on DC and back. Not only did I believe but so did the 110 women who traveled with me via bus with a friendly bus driver who performed a light show for us as we sang Donna Summer songs when the trip got long.
After landing in Fredrick Maryland for the night before the March, I threw a dinner reception for all these women who did not know each other. Some were in their 70s, a few in their 20s, some African American and some white, a few were Jewish and others Catholic but we instantly bonded over one cause, one heartbeat and in unity. A dance party broke out which most women took part in until the hotel manager made me shut it down. Only women would dance together in song so joyously.
Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham appearing in Seeing Allred with her Women TIES sign
The father of two girls and his wife in the next room, told me they were marching for women’s rights and asked if their family could join us. Next thing I knew I was dancing with 12- and 9-year-old sisters smack dab in the middle of our big dance circle. “Y.M.C.A.” played and the two girls happily danced in the center of the circle of grown-up women. In the end, I gave them both shirts and told them to continue to fight for what they believe in from this age forward. They hugged me three times and hopped off to bed because they were getting up at 4 a.m. to go to the march. You would have thought Santa Claus was coming to town.
The next morning after boarding a train to DC at the end of the Shady Grove Metro line, I had a conversation with two twenty-year-old college students from Maryland traveling in to stand up for “human rights”. We shared our hopes and dreams during the 30-minute train ride. They became new sisters in solidarity.
Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham and her young feminist friends in DC
Then we stood, marched, held up signs, and spoke to old women, young women, young girls, and men all with different reasons for attending. We witnessed a group holding a 6’ long pink yarn uterus for a woman’s right to choose. We shouted to a Canadian woman in the tree with her daughter telling us we could move to Canada if things didn’t work out in the USA. We broke into chants, songs, hymns, and hugs with people we did not know.
In front of the Capitol Building, I ran into my ESPNW contact and was interviewedabout the importance of supporting female athletesand why equal pay for women counts. Later that night the video was aired. In it you’ll see the enthusiasm that jumped into the interview with me – other women. I embraced it. It was about sisterhood – energetic, happy, sisterhood.
2017 Acting Suffragette and Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham
On the train ride home, I sat with a young transgender youth who proudly told me she had changed her gender. He was 15. Next to him was a young girl in the arts. They both told me about why they marched on Washington and their dreams. They shared photos with me. We hugged as we departed and I told them to keep up their dreams and fights. They thanked me and went on their way. My heart was changed forever at that moment. People are good. Children are good. Our future will be good because of them.
I returned home with a much larger pink heart than I ever had before – and that is saying something after 22 years of serving, promoting, and inspiring women in New York State – and a new urgency to create a larger company that has four distinct divisions – one for business, one for sports, one for equality and one for life – all for women. I will hire women to help me so we can spread our message louder from this day forward. I know I can do it because, “I believe and I will.”
Women TIES 