Capturing The Flag is an urgent cautionary tale that documents what’s in store for the fast-approaching election of 2020, and a close-up look of American democracy at its most vulnerable point. Through the intimate experiences of the film’s citizen volunteers, we are inspired to vote, to help someone else to vote, and to get involved in the growing non-partisan efforts to protect our fragile democracy. The shocking voter suppression we see unfold in real-time in Capturing The Flag is proliferating across the country, as those who control local elections have been emboldened to rewrite access to the ballot box along partisan lines. With verité footage of Barack Obama and Reverend Dr. William Barber II, the film is also a powerful call to arms for what we all can and need to do in the ongoing battle for voting rights.

After the film, we will have a Q&A with the producers, DA GOTV, and Angela Fobbs, GBC Chair.

About the Producers

Laverne Berry and Steve Miller have worked as volunteer Voter Protection lawyers in each of the past three presidential elections (2008 and 2016 in North Carolina, 2102 in Virginia) and during the 2018 midterms in North Carolina.  Most recently, they did this work during the re-do election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District in September 2019, after the original results were thrown out for absentee ballot fraud.    They have spoken about voter suppression and their experiences as voter protection poll observers at universities and community groups around the US, including at the Kennedy School at Harvard and at TEDx events. 

• Laverne is an entertainment and media business affairs attorney representing independent film and television producers, directors, production companies, distribution companies, authors, and media companies. Drawing on eighteen years as a television producer and distribution executive before becoming a lawyer, Laverne understands both the business and legal sides of the media marketplace. She acted as Executive Producer for Perfectly Normal For The Silent Truth and Me. She was the Co-Executive Producer for Emmy-nominated Chely Wright: Wish Me Away, and The Lady in Question is Charles Busch. Laverne also has been involved in Alternative Dispute Resolution for 25 years. She is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Dispute Panel, American Arbitration Association (AAA) Commercial Arbitration Panel, and Mediation Panel. Laverne has been named a New York Metro Area Super Lawyer for eight years by Thompson Reuters; and was included in the New York Metro Super Lawyers supplement to The New York Times newspaper, The Top Women Attorneys in New York, 2014- 2020.

• Steve is a consultant in international media and education, with over 25 years of experience developing and managing a broad range of media businesses and educational and social justice projects. Steve spent ten years at Sesame Workshop, the producer of Sesame Street, where he ran their international division. He then served as a member of the senior management team that ran the Walt Disney Company’s global publishing division for seven years, with responsibility for strategic planning and business development. Most recently he was Senior Vice President, Government and Corporate Relations and Business Development for the UK-based Study Group, an international education company.  Currently, advises clients on a wide range of international projects and partnerships and is a special advisor to the renowned Cambodian film director Rithy Panh’s Bophana Audiovisual Center in Phnom Penh. Steve was a member of the Board of Cambodian Living Arts, an NGO in Cambodia, from 2012 through 2017. He was a founding Board member of BAFTA-New York (the New York chapter of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and is one of the voters for the annual BAFTA Film Awards. He has also served on the Boards of Lambda Legal Defense and The Hetrick-Martin Institute. He has been a member of DA – Italy for over a decade and is a member of the LGBTQ+ Caucus. 

Ticket cost: While there is no donation required to attend, we hope you’ll consider a donation of $5 - or more - and help reach hundreds of potential voters!  Even if you can't join the Webinar, you can show your support by clicking HERE and making a donation for this event. 

Please RSVP for this event. The link to the online event will be sent a day before the event.

The Story after Mrs America

The Global Women’s Caucus invites you to join us in conversation about what has  happened with the Equal Rights Amendment  in the last 5 years.  This is another webinar in our Suffrage Centennial series.  

Equal Means Equal (EME)  Co-Directors Kamala Lopez  and Natalie White along with Wendy Murphy, EME Legal Counsel, tell their stories about the ratification of the ERA in the last 3 states (NV, IL, VA) along with the now pending court decisions.  Hear first-hand their on-the-ground experiences fighting for equal rights for all of us.  You’ll find some things maddening, some surprising and some heartwarming.  These  3 women get credit for helping resurrect the ERA after Phyllis Schlafly tried to kill it off in 1982.

Kamala Lopez, founder and Co-Director of Equal Means Equal, is an award-winning filmmaker, actress and activist born in New York City to an Indian mother and a Venezuelan American father. A Yale University graduate in Philosophy and Theatre Studies, Kamala started her career as a child actor on PBS’ Sesame Street and has worked steadily ever since.

 EQUAL MEANS EQUAL, the documentary Kamala directed/produced and co-wrote, won Best U.S. Documentary (Audience Award) at Michael Moore’s TCF Festival and was a New York Times Critics’ Pick. The film was the catalyst behind a national movement resulting in the ratification of the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: The Equal Rights Amendment. 

Her feature leads include Born in East L.A., Deep Cover, The Burning Season (winner of 2 Emmys, 3 Golden Globes and the Humanitas Prize), Clear and Present Danger, Lightning Jack, I Heart Huckabees and many more. Her extensive television career spans comedy and drama - from It’s the Gary Shandling’s Show to recurring roles on Medium, Resurrection Boulevard, Tour of Duty and guest leads on dozens of network shows including 24, Alias, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, 21 Jump Street (winner of the Imagen Award). She hosted the PBS series Wired Science with comedian Chris Hardwicke and recently did a stint on adult swim’s Black Jesus.

 The recipient of multiple awards from both federal & state government as well as the private sector, Kamala received the Woman of Courage Award from the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Latino Spirit Award from the State of California and YaleWomen’s first Impact Award for Excellence. She was named one of the 21 Leaders for the 21st Century and has spoken at venues including the United Nations, the United States Congress, Stanford Law School, The Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives & the Women’s March in Washington D.C.

Natalie White, Co-Director of Equal Means Equal, is a provocative and progressive feminist and artist, best known for her self-portrait work with Giant Polaroid Photography and as a crusader for women’s rights.

Following her June/ July 2016 solo show at The WhiteBox Foundation, she led a 250 mile march from NYC to DC to raise awareness for the Equal Rights Amendment. The day after the march, Ms.White painted “ERA NOW” on the U.S. Capitol steps in broad daylight in twenty foot letters. She was arrested a week later, she pled not guilty and represented herself at a trial that took place two days before Trump’s Inauguration and three days before the first Women’s March in Washington, D.C.

With character witnesses including Academy Award winning actress Patricia Arquette and Award winning actress / filmmaker Kamala Lopez, White was found guilty but only given a $50.00 fine and a six month stay away from the Capitol, with the provision that if she was going there to lobby for the Equal Rights Amendment she could go on Capitol property.

She was able to make the trial into a media circus appearing on MSNBC, Forbes, in The Washington Post, and Vice to name a few.

In January of 2017, White became the co-director of the Equal Means Equal Organization started by actress and filmmaker Kamala Lopez. Together White and Lopez successfully achieved the ratification of Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia after no state had even voted on ERA in almost 40 years, bringing the ERA to the 38 state threshold needed to ratify a Constitutional amendment.

On October 19, 2017,  EME filed the first lawsuit against the Trump Administration and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for their illegal order to the schools, encouraging them to violate the civil rights provisions guaranteed to women and girls under Title IX. On January 7, 2020, EME filed the first lawsuit against the archivist of the U.S. Constitution following the D.O.J.’s opinion letter the archivist should not certify E.R.A. - that case is now pending in Massachusetts Federal District Court.

Wendy Murphy, Equal Means Equal’s Legal Counsel, is an impact litigator specializing in women's and children's constitutional and civil rights. She is the Director of the Women's and Children's Advocacy Project under the Center for Law and Social Responsibility at New England Law|Boston where she has been teaching Sexual Violence Law for twenty years. Wendy has won many landmark cases and has filed countless briefs in State and Federal court to improve legal protections for women and children. She is a former child abuse and sex crimes prosecutor and served as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School where her work focused on the status of women in their capacities as victims in the criminal justice system. She has published numerous scholarly articles and has worked as a legal analyst for CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox News. 75% of her work is pro bono.

Join Political Forum host Jean-Pierre LaRochelle as he brings the popular Paris political discussion group online, to discuss the most pressing news and events of the day. Questions? jeanpierre-paris@hotmail.fr.

The Global Women’s Caucus Steering Team invites you to participate in our Women’s Suffrage Centennial Celebration.  We want to celebrate women’s right to vote as we close out our month of Suffrage Centennial events.

Grab your drink of choice (Happy Hour, Coffee Break or Tea Time) to join other women and men from around the globe to celebrate that women can and will vote in the 2020 election.

Feel free to dress in roaring 20’s attire, casual, or even your PJ’s. This is one event where we encourage you to turn on your camera.

There’s no agenda so just drop in to say hi.   We’ll be around for a couple of hours of celebrating.

The GWC and GBC invite you to join in conversation with two champions for women’s rights as they discuss with us the on-going battles for equality in the United States. Both of these women have fought to bring women into the Constitution and are far too familiar with all of the reasons the ERA is absolutely mandatory to provide and protect the rights of women. The attack on women’s rights, particularly over the last four years has intensified, with every aspect of women’s lives threatened and the challenge is clear, we must have that protection. But, to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, we must flip the Senate.  If you haven’t put your focus there yet, you will by the time this conversation is over. 100 years after women took the vote by sheer force of will, it is time for women to use that power to defeat the opponents of their rights.

ABOUT OUR GUESTS:

Jennifer Carroll Foy 
Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy was the chief sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment ratification bill in the Virginia House of Delegates. With Virginia’s passage in January 2020, three quarters of states have ratified the ERA, making the amendment eligible to be added to the U.S. Constitution. A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute as a member of the third class of female cadets ever to attend VMI, and a public defender, Jennifer was first elected to the House of Delegates in Virginia in 2017 in a seat long held by Republicans, in an election in which Democrats flipped 15 seats in the House. Foy was a leading advocate for Medicaid expansion in Virginia, raising the minimum wage and teacher salaries, and criminal justice reform. 

Eleanor (Ellie) Smeal
As Co-Founder and President of the Feminist Majority Foundation and former President of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Ellie has played a pivotal role in defining the debate, developing the strategies, and charting the direction of the modern day women’s movement for nearly five decades. She was the first to identify the “gender gap” – the difference in the way women and men vote and view issues – and popularized its usage in election and polling analyses to enhance women’s voting clout. Ellie has been an activist leader in the passage of landmark legislation, such as the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Equal Credit Act, Violence Against Women Act, and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. She led the fight for the U.S. ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (from 1977-1982), and is in the leadership of the current efforts to pass the ERA.  

If you have questions for the panelists, you can send them in advance to womenscaucus@democratsabroad.org. 

GWC Suffrage Centennial Campaign

Donate and support a phonebanking day in memory of the suffragettes!

Our goals are to raise at least $2,020 and make 1920 calls, encouraging U.S. overseas voters to request their ballots or register to vote before the October deadlines.  However, we really hope to have so many donors and callers that we blow by those numbers and just keep going! [Mobile device users, please scroll down to donate!]

Your donation will help us continue efforts to ensure that the right to vote, so hard won in 1920, is exercised by American women** around the world.

(** and men!)

Honor the Suffragettes and Use Your VOTE!

Donations are made to Democrats Abroad (Democratic Party Committee Abroad) and not to any candidate for Federal Office.

Donations to Democrats Abroad are not tax-deductible.

The movements for suffrage and equal rights based on gender and on race intersected, overlapped and sometimes faced off throughout American history. Understanding when, how, and why is critical to ensuring these rights are protected. The histories of the U.S. women’s suffrage and civil rights movements also stimulate a timely conversation on the value of the vote today. 

The GWC AND GBC invite you to join in conversation with two esteemed historians and writers, Dr. Alison M. Parker and Dr. Nikki Brown . They will explore the contested struggle for voting rights in the past and present in their opening remarks and will then respond to questions and comments from the audience.  

ABOUT OUR GUESTS:

Alison M. Parker is Chair & Richards Professor of American History at the University of Delaware. She has research and teaching interests in women’s and gender history, African American history, and legal history. In 2017-2018, Parker was an Andrew W. Mellon Advanced Fellow at the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. Her book, Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell is forthcoming (December 2020) from the University of North Carolina Press, in its John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. Among other publications, Parker is the author of two monographs, Articulating Rights: Nineteenth-Century American Women on Race, Reform, and the State (2010) and Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform, and Pro-Censorship Activism, 1873-1933 (1997). She also serves as the founding editor of the Gender and Race in American History book series for the University of Rochester Press. As Chair of the History Department at the University of Delaware, Parker is committed to helping to build a coalition of students, faculty, and staff promoting a wide-ranging anti-racism agenda.

Nikki Brown Nikki Brown has been teaching American and African American history since 1999.  She majored in History at Oberlin College, and she earned a PhD in History from Yale University in 2001.  Her book, Private Politics and Public Voices:  Black Women’s Activism from World War I to the New Deal (Indiana University Press) won the Letitia Woods Brown Award for Best Book in African American Women’s in History in 2006.  The major themes in Dr. Brown’s work are around gender, race, identity, representation, and politics.  Dr. Brown is also a professional photographer, and has recently completed a photography project on African American men in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  She is currently working on a book about Louisiana’s Civil Rights Movement.  Dr. Brown travels often to Turkey, where she taught Civil Rights history and American Women’s history in 2014 for one semester and 2018-2019 for the academic year, as a Senior Lecturer with the Fulbright/CIES Program. She is also preparing an oral history of the Afro-Turks, the African descendants of slaves in the Ottoman Empire.

If you have questions for the panelists, you can send them in advance to womenscaucus@democratsabroad.org.

Join Susan Rice and

Support Democrats Abroad's Global Campaign to

"Reach the World" 

Over 9 million Americans live outside of the United States. Democrats Abroad is working to ensure that as many as possible vote in November, and that Democrats win up and down the ballot. 

We are phoning members, running social media ads, and mailing potential voters in order to win in November.

And our Get Out the Vote campaigns work. In 2016, the number of Americans abroad who voted was 50% higher than in 2012 and in 2018, the number of voters tripled compared to 2014.

We CAN make the difference, but we need YOUR help. Please make a donation today to fund our Global Get Out the Vote campaign.

Donations are made to Democrats Abroad (Democratic Party Committee Abroad) and not to any candidate for Federal Office.

Donations to Democrats Abroad are not tax-deductible.

Thank you to all who joined our discussion on Mother's Day.

Books Abroad, the Global Women’s Caucus feminist reading group, is excited to announce its summer reading pick, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger by Rebecca Traister. Save the date, September 20th, for an engaging discussion of the history of female anger as political fuel. We hope this pick makes a great summer read and gives you food for thought during the election season. We look forward to seeing you again in September!

The organizing team would also like to introduce Joy Notoma as the group's next discussion facilitator, as Kelsey McLendon is moving back to the U.S. to pursue other opportunities.

This is an online event. Please RSVP to receive the connection information.

Our theme was VIOLENCE, in all its forms, against women.  "Sexual violence is a global epidemic that is all around us, yet it is nowhere, precisely because it permeates every facet of our presence in the world, echoing throughout political and popular cultures, ricocheting off the cement walls that define our boundaries." - Michele Chen from  Roxane Gay's "Not That Bad." 

We need and Equal Rights Amendment to protect women against violence.  Laws alone do not solve the problem.

Salli Swartz leads the discussion about the ERA that followed the viewing of the documentary Equal Means Equal, answering the question: Why, in the year 2019 with so many opportunities for American women, do we need the Equal Rights Amendment?

Democrats Abroad went into action on Saturday evening Nov. 10 as Donald Trump arrived in France. Their candlelight vigils showed him what they think about his 'leadership.'   SUPPORTING the TRUE American values including humanitarian concern for others, the first amendment, respect for science, respect for journalists, freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation, equality for women and people of color, care for the environment and dedication to fair play and true democracy. HONORING American victims of right-wing hate crimes inspired by Trump's rhetoric. And RESPECTING our Constitution and the right to pursue investigations without hindrance.

The new Democratic National Committee  created an infrastructure to support candidates up and down the ballot and organize year-round -- leading to wins in some places that would've seemed unthinkable two years ago. Here are some of the ways Democrats gained ground across the country :

• 29 House seats flipped so far -- with a good shot at flipping at least half a dozen more once all the results come in;
• Seven governors' seats flipped;
• Six legislative chambers flipped -- bringing the total number we've flipped up to seven this cycle;
• Four Republican state legislature supermajorities broken;
• In total, Democrats flipped over 290 individual state legislative races last night -- bringing our total on the cycle up to over 330!
• Four states voted to expand voting rights, including a constitutional amendment in Florida that will restore voting rights to more than 1 million people with felony records;
• Three state Supreme Court seats flipped;
• Three red states voted to expand Medicaid;
• Two states voted to raise their minimum wages;
• One U.S. Senate seat flipped -- congrats to Jacky Rosen.

And here are some of the incredible candidates who won historic victories last night:

Democrats Abroad France organized rallies and candlelight vigils across the country with “Families Belong Together” events in Paris, Lyon, Grenoble, and Toulouse to protest Trump’s pointlessly cruel “Zero Tolerance” policy towards refugee and immigrant families, and a July 4th “Vive La Resistance” apero/picnic by the Seine in Paris with coalition partners to register voters and organize for the Fall.  On June 30th we marched in the LGBTQ Gay Parade.  With just four months ahead of us, we must continue to mobilize voters to speak out and defend our Democratic Party values.

Every year, Democrats Abroad France remembers the fallen soldiers who bravely died while serving in the US Armed Forces.  Decorating graves to remember the dead is an ancient tradition that continues to this day. In America the tradition began with those who died in the Civil War.  All are invited to attend.  Since 1918 is the 100th Anniversary of WWI, the ceremonies will be grandissime.    We will be laying wreaths in ceremonies throughout France on the graves of these heroes on the following dates:

Memorial Day Ceremonies Meuse-Argonne May 27th at 11am 

Memorial Day Ceremonies May 27th at St. Mihiel 4pm 

Memorial Day Ceremonies Lafayette Escadrille May 27th at 10am

Memorial Day Ceremonies Surennes May 27th at 2.30pm

Memorial Day Ceremonies May 27th Oise-Aisne at 3pm

Memorial Day Ceremonies Epinal May 27th at 10:30am 

For more information, contact: ammattson52@gmail.com or brooke.elizabeth.burns@gmail.com

On April 5, we honored the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King on the 50th anniversary of his assassination. The event was held in the sanctuary of the American Church in Paris where Dr. King himself spoke in October of 1965, and the Church was full. The program was organized by co-Chair of the Diversity Caucus, Reed Kennedy, and included a welcome from church clergy, excerpts from Martin Luther King's writings. music, and speeches as well as a panel discussion on the life and legacy of the civil rights icon. A key moment featured author Jake Lamar reading the moving Letter From Birmingham City Jail from the same pulpit where Dr. King spoke.

For those of you who could not make it to the event, here are links for few pictures (photo credit: Richard Allen) as well as athe livestream video .

Donald Trump was elected on the promise to change the face of American politics and bring power back to the people. The nation is today divided and more polarized than ever before. While looking back on 2017, what can we predict for American politics in 2018?   Hall Gardner, Christopher Dickey, Anne Deysine and Joe Smallhoover examined these issues on  January 22 at the American University of Paris.  You can watch the informative discussion of this memorable evening HERE.