Engage, Mobilize, Empower, Elect

I attended the Revolutionary Women 2004 Boston event on Tuesday at the new convention center. Between that and watching the DNC every night, I'm feeling pretty inspired. I have lots to write, but can't seem to get my head together. Here are some photos from the event. Closer (and clearer) ones can be seen at the Globe.

I attended the Youth in Action: How Young People Can Get Involved in Politics workshop with Maria Padilla from the Hyde Square Task Force in JP, Jehmu Greene the president of Rock the Vote, and Malia Lazu the field director for The Young Voter Alliance and founder of BostonVote.

Howard Dean welcomed us all and introduced the featured speakers, an amazingly powerful and smart group of women.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives was excellent. She is the first woman in American history to lead a major party in the U.S. Congress. She raised 5 children and then decided to run for Congress. Imagine.

Madeleine Albright also spoke. She was the first woman Secretary of State and is the highest ranking woman in the history of the US government. She started off with "Revolutionary Women Rock!" which was very sweet.

Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun the first female senator from Illinois, first female African-American senator and first African-American Democratic senator gave a great speech. She told us that the US ranks 58th in the world in gender parity in its national congress. At the rate we're going, it will take 350 years until we reach the level of Sweden with 49% female participation in congress. Pretty depressing.

I was glad a local woman spoke: Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral the first African-American female sheriff in Massachusetts history!

And the person who really got the crowd screaming, Hilary Clinton spoke.

After all of the excellent speeches, the curtains opened up and Liz Phair was standing there with her guitar. I'd say 80% of the place cleared out as she started to play, but the folks who were interested clammered toward the front of the stage, so hopefully Liz Phair didn't feel too bad. I heard a few songs and then took off myself.

I haven't listened to Liz Phair in ages, but her newish song Rock Me made me laugh, about being with a younger guy, "Your record collection don't exist / You don't even know who Liz Phair is."

When my thoughts are collected I'm sure I'll write more about how exciting this whole DNC business has been for me. Oh and I can't forget, if it weren't for Barbara Lee the Revolutionary Women event never would have taken place.