On Saturday, July 11 from 1 to 4 PM ET at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool steps, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) will be holding a public awareness event in support of our universal human rights of equality and liberty, seeking to have day on the week after July 4 recognized as “Equality And Liberty Day.”    The goal of “Equality and Liberty Day” is to remember these essential universal human rights and to gauge our progress in realizing these in America and around the world.   For details – see “Event Logistics” below.

We will be promoting equality and liberty by the use of orange ribbons.  We will encourage individuals to wear orange or to wear orange ribbons for the event as a sign of your support for our universal human rights of equality and liberty.

At this Responsible for Equality And Liberty public awareness event, we will be addressing key areas that continue to be challenges for our true realization of equality and liberty in America and around the world:

1.  Equal Rights for All Women and an End to Misogyny. Our universal human rights for equality and liberty demands equal rights for all women.  In America, this demands the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.) to ensure full Constitutional equality for all women.  The E.R.A. still has not yet been ratified by 15 states:

— Alabama
— Arizona
— Arkansas
— Florida
— Georgia
— Illinois
— Louisiana
— Mississippi
— Missouri
— Nevada
— North Carolina
— Oklahoma
— South Carolina
— Utah
— Virginia

It is past time for American to act on this!  We seek to raise public awareness on this essential women’s rights issue, and join organizations seeking to fight the battle for women’s rights.  We will raise public awareness about the Facebook website of ERA NOW, which provides individual Facebook sites for individuals seeking to work together getting the E.R.A. approved for the unratified states.  We will ask the public to also sign the petition in support of the E.R.A. online.

Regarding misogyny, or the hate and/or contempt of women, we have seen that violence against women around the world continue.  We view first and foremost that hate against women should be viewed as a true “hate crime,” and that violence targeting women around the world must no longer be accepted as merely traditional “crime.”  This requires a greater acceptance of our Responsibility for Equality And Liberty for all human beings.   The hate crime of misogyny is the largest hate crime against humanity; misogynists call for hate, oppression, and violence – literally against half of humanity itself.   The continuation of such misogynist hate shows how far we have yet to go in obtaining human equality and liberty.

2. Liberty for Those Oppressed by Totalitarianism. We have just passed the 20th anniversary since Communist China’s brutal repression of the Tiananmen Square protests for democracy, and we continue to see Communist China, Communist North Korea, and Communist Vietnam continuing to oppress over 1 billion human beings every day.  We defy such totalitarianism and we defend the mutuality of universal human rights and dignity for all of our fellow human beings.   We cannot be responsible for equality and liberty and ignore the thousands of forced labor camps in Communist China, the forced abortions in Communist China, the trafficking in human bodies parts in Communist China; we cannot ignore the 1 billion in China who continue to be forced to live under Communist oppression that denies their liberty, and that imprisons those who seek to exercise freedom of conscience.   We cannot ignore Communist North Korea’s own concentration camps, where two U.S. journalists have recently been sentenced to be imprisoned.  We cannot ignore that Communist North Korea has starved to death 2 to 3 million of its own people.  We cannot ignore Communist Vietnam’s continuing efforts to oppress those who seek democracy and freedom.   Unlike some political leaders, those of us responsible for equality and liberty must make our universal human rights A PRIORITY – and that means challenging those who would deny such liberty through totalitarian hate of our fellow human beings.

3.  Challenging the Resurgence of Racial Supremacism. While America and the world has progressed in pushing back the blight of racial supremacism, it has recently begun to grow once again.  We have seen the growth of up over 900 hate groups in America alone.  We have seen racial supremacist and Neo-Nazi murders continue in America’s capital and around the nation.  We have seen racial supremacist and Neo-Nazi plots to murder hundreds of black Americans and Barack Obama.  As a people responsible for equality and liberty, we must stand against this racial supremacist hate and violence throughout America and the world.

4. Challenging the Ideology of Extremism’s War on Women, Homosexuals, Non-Muslims, and Other Muslims. It is impossible to honestly ignore the serious global problem of the ideology of extremism and its threat to those who refuse to accept it.   We see a regular series of attacks by extremists on women by oppression, by so-called “honor killings” and stonings, and by treating women as less than human beings. extremism constitutes an institutionalized misogynist ideology against women as shown by a continuous war on women in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and around the world – where hate and violence against women is legitimized by extremist authorities.  We see a war against homosexuals by extremists who seek to have homosexuals imprisoned, oppressed, beaten, and murdered in the most gruesome and vicious ways, including so-called “honor killings” against homosexuals as well, including public calls in the West for the “stoning” of homosexuals.   We see a regular series of attacks against non-Muslims – denying their human rights, seeking their oppression, calling for violence against them, and killing them.  Moreover, we also see a consistent effort by extremists even to deny the human rights of fellow Muslim sects around the world.   As a people responsible for equality and liberty, we cannot ignore when the human rights of women, of homosexuals, of non-Muslims, and of Muslims are oppressed by extremists whose ideology defies the very universal human right of human equality.

5. Why All of These Issues of Equality And Liberty Are Interrelated

An assault on human rights and human dignity anywhere – is an assault everywhere.  An attack on women in one place is an attack on women everywhere.  Those anti-freedom ideologies that attack human rights in one place – are attacking human rights everywhere, including your human rights.  An attack on one race is an attack on your race.  Those supremacists who say that some people, because of their gender, their religion, or their conscience, do not deserve the universal human right of equality – deny such equality for all people everywhere.

That is what UNIVERSAL human rights are all about.  The very universality of this issue – makes every one of these struggles for human rights – the SAME struggle. They are not segmented struggles by geography, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. They are all the same struggle, because they are all the same universal human rights.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Therefore, our support for human equality and liberty is not limited to only these categories above, but is part of our support for universal human rights for all humanity.  In this public awareness event, Responsible for Equality And Liberty seeks to make the public aware of these four major challenges to human equality and liberty today.  We don’t suggest that these are the only challenges to our universal human rights, but these are major global challenges that are literally life and death issues for our fellow human beings.

We challenge each of those aspects that defy equality and liberty, not merely as random violence, not merely as aspects of the world that we would like to change – but as INSTITUTIONALIZED HATE that consciously and deliberately stands AGAINST the universal human rights of equality and liberty.

July 11 Lincoln Memorial Event Logistics:
Our event will be held from 1 to 4 PM ET on Saturday July 11, at the reflecting pool steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial (not the Lincoln Memorial steps).  We are recommending that attendees take public transportation via the Washington subway to either the Foggy Bottom metro stop and walk south to the Lincoln Memorial, or the Smithsonian metro stop and walk west along the National Mall and 17th street to Lincoln Memorial (see details below).

Important note – the reflecting pool steps where our event will be located is on the east side of the 23rd street that goes between the Lincoln Memorial itself and the reflecting pool in front of it.

 

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC is on the far end of the National Mall and bisects 23rd Street (see PDF of map).  It can be reached from Constitution Avenue from Henry Bacon Drive and from Independence Avenue from Henry French Drive.  Limited parking may be available on Independence Avenue or Madison Avenue near the National Mall, or at the Jefferson Memorial.  However, parking in Washington DC is scarce, and using public transportation is strongly recommended.

DC Subway and Walking Directions

Walking from Foggy Bottom subway stop to Lincoln Memorial
– Map in walking from Foggy Bottom to Lincoln Memorial
* Exit station using main exit
* Walk approx. 7 blocks S on 23rd St NW. (stay on 23rd Street essentially until you get within visual range of Lincoln Memorial)
* Turn right on Lincoln Memorial Circle SW.
* Walk a short distance W on Lincoln Memorial Circle SW.

Walking from Smithsonian subway stop to Lincoln Memorial
* Exit station using 12TH & JEFFERSON (THE MALL) exit
* Walk approx. 2 blocks W on Jefferson Dr SW.
* Turn right on 14th St NW.
* Walk approx. 1 block N on 14th St NW.
– Map in walking from Smithsonian subway to Washington Monument (en route)
* Keep walking past Washington Monument west in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial
* Cross 17th Street going west
* Walk past National World War II Monument west in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial
* Continue to walk down Washington Mall in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial
* NOTE: that our rally will be on the side of the reflecting pool nearest the Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial Information Center
23rd Street, NW
202-426-6841

National Park Web Site Directions to the Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial is part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks. The memorial stands in West Potomac Park, near the convergence of numerous roads from throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. In terms of placement, the memorial occupies a highly symbolic and important position as the western “bookend” of the National Mall, while the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial provides the eastern component at the foot of Capitol Hill, two miles to the east.

Car
Interstate 395 provides access to the Mall from the South. Interstate 495, New York Avenue, Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, George Washington Memorial Parkway, and the Cabin John Parkway provide access from the North. Interstate 66, U.S. Routes 50 and 29 provide access from the West. U.S. Routes 50, 1, and 4 provide access from the East.

 

Public Transportation
There are several Metro train and bus routes from the suburban areas surrounding the city. In addition to Washington, D.C. public transportation, adjacent state and commonwealth transportation authorities offer train service from area cites to the Nation’s Capital. Consult the Public Transportation link for additional details.

Parking
General visitor parking is available along Ohio Drive, SW between the Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson Memorials. Bus parking is available primarily along Ohio Drive, SW near the Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson Memorials and along Ohio Drive, SW in East Potomac Park. See the Maps section for a detailed understanding of these areas.

There is limited handicapped parking at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt and World War II Memorials and near the Washington Monument and the Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, Korean War Veterans, and Vietnam Veterans Memorials; otherwise, parking is extremely scarce in Washington, D.C.

Note:

Please see our list of planned events and petitions designed to defy totalitarians and supremacists and let them know that we plan to stop their attack on equality and liberty.

For more information on how you can help, email us at realpublic@earthlink.net