When counting the cash in our donation buckets after a really intense weekend, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that we had raised $450. Our club held a pretty impromptu emergency protest in response to the fascist assault on abortion in Texas on Saturday and we spent Sunday staffing a booth at “Sunday on State.”
About 35-40 people, including many young women who we'd never met before, participated in the Saturday protest. Two young women, who simply bumped into the rally, put on bloody pants and joined in. Groups of young women brought homemade signs. It was raucous and beautiful and it drew a favorable response from the large crowds on the streets around Chicago's Millennium Park. One of the most popular chants was “Fuck the courts and the Legislature! I am not an incubator! How do we get out of this mess? Revolution Nothing Less!”
Two women held the donation buckets. One of these women told her story at the rally. She was raped at age 19 and got pregnant. This was before abortion was legal. She said she was lucky to find a doctor who would put his career on the line to give her an abortion. She was pretty assertive about raising funds. She asked everyone who responded favorably to our presence to donate. Both women summed up the key to getting donations was to ask for them. Two hundred fifty dollars was raised at the protest.
At our booth on Sunday we added the hastily-made paper banner we used on Saturday which said “Abortion on Demand and Without Apology” to our booth display. The main banner on the booth remained “The System Can't Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown. We ran into several people who recognized us from the protest the day before. Many people came up to the booth and expressed outrage about the Texas law and the Supreme Court allowing it to stand. Everyone who came to the booth got the Declaration and Call, BA's Rare Times pamphlet and the palm card announcing the showing of The RNL Show episode 62 on public access TV in Chicago.
We continued to have our fundraising table of donated jewelry. But our most popular fundraising item was an 11x17 poster which can be downloaded from revcom which said “Women Are Not Bitches, Ho's etc. We had a stack of them which cost around around 40 cents to make and asked people to donate for them. Some gave a dollar, some gave $5. Two men donated $20 for posters for their daughters. Some people simply put cash in the donation bucket. Two hundred dollars was raised at our booth.
We encourage other clubs and revcoms to learn from this experience. Seize the moment to spread the revolution, to organize people into revolution and to raise funds.
