Women's March returns to DC and other cities today despite government shutdown and anti-Semitism controversy plaguing organization leadership
The third annual Women's March returned to Washington, DC, among other cities, today despite inclement weather, ideological schisms and the longest government shutdown in American history.
Among the famous faces seen at Women's March Saturday was wave-making Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, 29, the youngest women ever elected to Congress, who is set to speak at both the New York City Women's March and the off-shoot Women's Unity Rally. Gloria Steinem, meanwhile, was also spotted at the Women's Unite Rally in NYC.
In November 2018, Teresa Shook, one of the movement's founders, publicly accused the four main leaders of the national march organization of anti-Semitism.
Shook, a retired attorney from Hawaii, has been credited with sparking the entire movement by creating a Facebook event that went viral and snowballed into the massive protest on January 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump's inauguration.
In the November 19 Facebook post, she claimed Women's March leaders Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory, along with fellow organizers Bob Bland and Carmen Perez, had 'steered the Movement away from its true course' and called for all four to step down.
'In opposition to our Unity Principles,' Shook
wrote, 'they have allowed anti-Semitism, anti- LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform by their refusal to separate themselves from groups that espouse these racist, hateful beliefs.'
This accusation was targeted specifically at two primary leaders: Sarsour, a Palestinian-American with a long history of criticizing Israeli policy, and Mallory, who has maintained a longstanding association with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
Farrakhan has been criticized for making anti-Semitic statements during speeches, including referencing 'Satanic Jews' and saying that 'powerful Jews are my enemy' at a February 2018 speech that Mallory attended, according to
ADL.
Women's March returns to DC amid shutdown and controversy | Daily Mail Online