The National Organization for Women is proud to stand with our allies today, the anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. We stand here in Riverside Church, the very place where, exactly one year earlier, he made his most famous speech in opposition to the Vietnam War. This is the place where Dr. King spoke of "the fierce urgency of now." We are following the path he lit, and reaching for the same goals: peace, justice and democracy.

We are together today, this rainbow of organizations, for a common purpose: to raise a clarion call in the nation. To appeal, as Dr. King did at the pulpit of this great church, to the conscience of the nation. To call on those who would join us in this noble cause. March with us for Peace, Justice and Democracy. Here in New York City on April 29, under the gaze of the Statue of Liberty, we will say to our government: Enough is enough.

Our deepest values and the promises of democracy have been tarnished, trampled upon and flat out stolen from us. Every day this administration and its cronies make a mockery of decency, and do great harm to a great many good people in the process.

The women and men of our military are dying in Iraq, thousands of them, along with countless Iraqis…and for what? The hubris and moral bankruptcy of this administration? This war is about oil and greed. We cannot ask our young service women and men to continue risking their lives for a war based on lies.

At home, the concept of "justice for all" is gasping for breath. People don't know whether their votes will be counted, and the federal courts have been stacked by ultra-conservative pro-business judges. Reproductive justice for women is a top target of those in power, and they will not be satisfied until women have no control over their own bodies or lives. In the year 2006, this country is being steered by a radical right machine that wants to go back to a time when those of us living with sexism, racism, and homophobia didn't even ask for equality under the law, much less demand it. Back when we "knew our place." Well we don't intend to go back to that place.

Faith in our government's ability to protect the people, and to be accountable for its actions, is one more casualty of this administration. The survivors of Katrina can tell you what it's like to be set adrift from any sense of security or hope. The poor, the uninsured, the elderly, people with disabilities, the young and vulnerable—the majority of them women—are just more "collateral damage" in the rush to consolidate wealth and power.

If peace and justice are in short supply right now, democracy has become a hollow promise. How can the U.S. promote democracy in foreign lands, when that democracy seems to be so foreign to our own leaders?

We must take back our country. We must. We must start by taking to the streets and demonstrating to the world that we do know what peace, justice and democracy look like. And that we have set about making things right.

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