title: Million Man March

text: One of the primary motivating factors for the march was to place black issues back on the nation's political agenda. In the aftermath of the Republican Party's victory in the 1994 Congressional election and the continued success of the party's campaign platform, the Contract with America, some African American leaders felt the social and economic issues facing the black community fell by the wayside of policy debates. March organizers believed that politicians were failing the black community by "papering over the most vital dimensions of the crisis in international capitalism" and blaming urban blacks for "domestic economic woes that threatened to produce record deficits, massive unemployment, and uncontrolled inflation".


title: Million Man March

text: At the time of the march, African Americans faced unemployment rates nearly twice that of white Americans, a poverty rate of more than 40%, and a median family income that was about 58% of the median for white households. More than 11% of all black men were unemployed and for those aged 16 to 19, the number of unemployed had climbed to over 50%. Further, according to Reverend Jesse Jackson's speech at the March, the United States House of Representatives had reduced funding to some of the programs that played an integral role in urban Americans' lives. "The House of Representatives cut $1.1 billion from the nation's poorest public schools", and "cut $137 million from Head Start" effectively subtracting $5,000 from each classroom's budget and cutting 45,000 preschoolers from a crucial early education program.


title: Million Man March

text: Environmental hazards were also seen as making the lives of urban Blacks unstable. Black men were murdered at a rate of 72 per 100,000, a rate significantly higher than the 9.3 per 100,000 attributed to white men. Some black activists blamed aggressive law enforcement and prison construction for leaving "two hundred thousand more blacks in the jail complex than in college" and devastating leadership gaps within black communities and families. Event organizers were further infuriated by a perceived gap in prenatal care for black women and children caused, in part, by the closing of inner-city hospitals.


title: Million Man March

text: Event organizers were of the view that urban Blacks were born with "three strikes against them": insufficient prenatal care, inferior educational opportunities, and jobless parents. Instead of providing young children with the means to succeed, they believed the government instead intervened in the lives of its black citizens through law enforcement and welfare programs that did little to improve the community's circumstances.


title: Million Man March

text: In addition to their goal of fostering a spirit of support and self-sufficiency within the black community, organizers of the Million Man March also sought to use the event as a publicity campaign aimed at combating the negative racial stereotypes in the American media and in popular culture. March organizers were dismayed by the sweeping stereotypes they thought white America seemed to draw from the coverage of such figures as Willie Horton, O. J. Simpson, and Mike Tyson.


title: Million Man March

text: Stating that "black men have been designated by the culture as the sacrificial lambs for male evil", event organizers asked the black men in attendance to make a public display of their commitment to responsible and constructive behavior that would give the mass media positive imagery to broadcast.


title: Million Man March

text: Although various organizations, charities, and vendors had booths and displays at the rally, the focal point of the day was the stage set up on the west front grounds of the United States Capitol building. The day's events were broken down into several sessions: Early Morning Glory (6 am–7:30am), Sankofa: Lessons from the Past Linkages to the Future (8 am–10:30 am), Affirmation/Responsibility (11 am–2 pm), and Atonement and Reconciliation (2:30 pm–4 pm).


title: Million Man March

text: The organizers of the event took steps to lift the march from a purely political level to a spiritual one, hoping to inspire attendees and honored guests to move beyond "articulation of black grievances" to a state of spiritual healing. Speakers at the event structured their talks around three themes: atonement, reconciliation, and responsibility. The Day of Atonement became a second name for the event and for some came to represent the motivation of the Million Man movement. In the words of one man who was in attendance, Marchers aimed at "being at one with ourselves, the Most High, and our people".


title: Million Man March

text: Beyond the most basic call for atonement leaders of the March also called for reconciliation or a state of harmony between members of the black community and their God. Speakers called participants to "settle disputes, overcome conflicts, put aside grudges and hatreds" and unite in an effort to create a productive and supportive black community that fosters in each person the ability to "seek the good, find it, embrace it, and build on it." Finally, the leaders of the March challenged participants and their families at home to "expand [our] commitment to responsibility in personal conduct…and in obligations to the community".


title: Million Man March

text: While male leaders took primary responsibility for planning and participating in the events in Washington, female leaders organized a parallel activity called the National Day of Absence. In the spirit of unity and atonement, these leaders issued a call for all Black people not in attendance at the March to recognize October 16, 1995, as a sacred day meant for self-reflection and spiritual reconciliation. All Black Americans were encouraged to stay home from their work, school, athletic, entertainment activities and various other daily responsibilities on the Day of Absence.


title: Million Man March

text: Instead of partaking in their usual routines, participants were instructed to gather at places of worship and to hold teach-ins at their homes in order to meditate on the role and responsibility of blacks in America. Further, the day was intended to serve as an occasion for mass voter registration and contribution to the establishment of a Black Economic Development Fund.


title: Million Man March

text: Because of the name of the event, the number of attendees was a primary measure of its success and estimating the crowd size, always a contentious issue reached new heights in bitterness. March organizers estimated the crowd size at between 1.5 to 2 million people but were incensed when the United States Park Police officially estimated the crowd size at 400,000. Farrakhan threatened to sue the National Park Service because of the low estimate from the Park Police.


title: Million Man March

text: Three days after the march, Farouk El-Baz, director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University released a controversial estimate of 870,000 people with a margin of error of 25 percent, meaning that the crowd could have been as small as 655,000 or as large as 1.1 million. It later revised that figure to 837,000, with a 20% margin of error (669,600 to 1,004,400). The Park Service never retracted its estimate.


title: Million Man March

text: After the Million Man March, the Park Police ceased making official crowd size estimates. Roger G. Kennedy, the Director of the National Park Service, said that his agency planned to study the possibility of no longer counting crowds, noting that most organizations that sponsor large events complain that Park Service estimates are too low. When it prepared the 1997 appropriations bill for the United States Department of the Interior, the Committee on Appropriations of the United States House of Representatives stated in a June 1996 report that accompanied the bill that the Committee had not provided any funding for crowd counting activities associated with gatherings held on federal property in Washington, D.C. The report further stated that if event organizers wish to have crowd estimates, they should hire a private sector firm to conduct the count.


title: Million Man March

text: Louis Farrakhan acquired unfavorable attention from African-American Christians and was compared to "Adolf Hitler" by the Jewish community for anti-Jewish rhetoric and views. His supporters say that Farrakhan was "against those Jews who have sacrificed their deep moral-religious heritage for a set of values grounded in capitalist exploitation and oppression." "Newsweek" expressed concern about Farrakhan's political agenda in registering black men to vote as non-affiliate or independent parties.


title: Million Man March

text: Richard Lacayo and Sam Allis wrote that Farrakhan may have organized the march to "simply prove that he was the man who could make it happen; he would then capitalize on the prominence he hoped it would confer."


title: Million Man March

text: A group of black feminists including Angela Davis, Barbara Ransby, Evelynn Hammonds and Kimberlé Crenshaw formed an alliance called the African American Agenda 2000 to oppose the Million Man March. E. Frances White would recall in 2010 that the march had "frightened many black feminists because we felt that it would herald a dramatic resurgence in black male sexism."


title: Million Man March

text: Creating a separation in the movement became a topic of great controversy since it has been argued that, "Organizers excluded women from the march to send a two-part message" that men need to improve their character and women need to recognize their place "in the home."


title: Million Man March

text: In Mark Anthony Neal's "New Black Man", Neal emphasizes the "small percentage of black women in attendance that day." Neal offers the perspective of Debra Dickerson, a woman writer who attended the march: "Dickerson noted the aura of politeness and chivalry she experienced walking...there was an element of performance taking place that day for international media, corporate America." The Million Man March that excluded black women was a "call for atonement [that] spoke to the need for those black men engaged in acts of criminality, violence, and blatant misogyny." However, black women faced backlash for exposing the March's flaws, such as "gender apartheid and nostalgia for patriarchy."


title: Million Man March

text: Farrakhan held the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March: Justice or Else on October 10, 2015, in Washington, D.C.


title: Million Man March

text: The "New York Times" published an opinion piece by Charles M. Blow, who found it difficult to "separate the march from the messenger", and criticized Minister Farrakhan's speech, calling it homophobic and patriarchal. In an opinion piece for "The Washington Post", Janell Ross called Farrakhan's speech "striking", a "stemwinder", and the "apex" of the event.


title: Million Man March

text: The 1996 motion picture, "Get on the Bus", was released exactly one year to the day of this event, directed by Spike Lee as his first movie that he didn't act in himself. The road-movie plot has a group of African Americans on the titular bus on the way to the Million Man March.


title: Steve King

text: Steven Arnold King (born May 28, 1949) is an American far-right politician and businessman who served as a U.S. representative from Iowa from 2003 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Iowa's 5th congressional district until 2013 and the state's 4th district from 2013 to 2021.


title: Steve King

text: Born in 1949 in Storm Lake, Iowa, King attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970. He founded a construction company in 1975 and worked in business and environmental study before seeking the Republican nomination for a seat in the Iowa Senate in 1996. He won the primary and the general election, and was reelected in 2000. In 2002 King was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa's 5th congressional district after the incumbent, Tom Latham, was reassigned to the 4th district after redistricting. He was reelected four times before the 2010 United States Census removed the 5th district and placed King in the 4th, which he represented from 2013.


title: Steve King

text: King is an opponent of immigration and multiculturalism, and has a long history of racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric and white-nationalist affiliations. "The Washington Post" described King as "the Congressman most openly affiliated with white nationalism." King has been criticized for alleged affiliation with white supremacist ideas, and has made controversial statements against immigrants, and supported European right-wing populist and far-right politicians accused of racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.


title: Steve King

text: For much of King's congressional tenure, Republican politicians and officials were silent about his rhetoric, and frequently sought his endorsement and campaigned with him because of his popularity with northwest Iowa's conservative voters. Shortly before the 2018 election, the National Republican Congressional Committee withdrew funding for King's reelection campaign and its chairman, Steve Stivers, condemned King's conduct, although Iowa's Republican senators and governor continued to endorse him. King was narrowly reelected, but after a January 2019 interview in which he questioned the negative connotations of the terms "white nationalist" and "white supremacy", he was widely condemned by both parties, the media, and public figures, and the Republican Steering Committee removed him from all House committee assignments. King ran for reelection but, campaign funding and support having declined, lost the June 2020 Republican primary to Randy Feenstra by 10 points.


title: Steve King

text: King was born on May 28, 1949, in Storm Lake, Iowa, the son of Mildred Lila (née Culler), a homemaker, and Emmett A. King, a state police dispatcher. His father has Irish and German ancestry, and his mother has Welsh roots, as well as American ancestry going back to the colonial era. His grandmother was a German immigrant. King graduated in 1967 from Denison Community High School. In 1972, he married Marilyn Kelly, with whom he has three children. Though raised Methodist, King attends his wife's Catholic church, having converted 17 years after marrying her. His son Jeff King, a consultant, has been active in his political campaigns.


title: Steve King

text: King attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970, where he was a member of the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity and majored in math and biology, but did not graduate. In 1975, King founded King Construction, an earthmoving company. In the 1980s, he founded the Kiron Business Association. King's involvement with the Iowa Land Improvement Contractors' Association led to regional and national offices in that organization and a growing interest in public policy.


title: Steve King

text: In 1996, King was elected to Iowa's 6th Senate district, defeating incumbent senator Wayne Bennett in the primary 68%–31% and Democrat Eileen Heiden in the general election 64%–35%. In 2000, he won reelection to a second term, defeating Democratic nominee Dennis Ryan 70%–30%. During his tenure in the Iowa State Senate, King filed a bill requiring public schools to teach children that the U.S. "is the unchallenged greatest nation in the world and that it has derived its strength from... Christianity, free enterprise capitalism and Western civilization", and served as chief sponsor of a law making English the official language of Iowa.


title: Steve King

text: In 2002, after redistricting, King ran for the open seat in Iowa's 5th congressional district. The incumbent, fellow Republican Tom Latham, had his home drawn into the reconfigured 4th district. King finished first in the four-way Republican primary with 31% of the vote, less than the 35% voting threshold needed to win; subsequently, a nominating convention was held, at which he was nominated, defeating state house speaker Brent Siegrist 51%–47%. King won the general election, defeating Council Bluffs city councilman Paul Shomshor 62%–38%. He won all the counties in the predominantly Republican district except Pottawattamie.


title: Steve King

text: King won reelection to a second term, defeating Democratic candidate Joyce Schulte, 63%–37%. He won all the counties in the district except Clarke.


title: Steve King

text: In 2006, King won reelection to a third term, defeating Schulte again, 59%–36%. He won all the counties in the district except Clarke and Union.


title: Steve King

text: King won reelection to a fourth term, defeating Democratic candidate Rob Hubler, 60%–37%. For the first time in his career he won all 32 counties in his district.


title: Steve King

text: King won reelection to a fifth term, defeating Matt Campbell, 66%–32%. That was his highest percentage yet. King also won all 32 counties again.


title: Steve King

text: Iowa lost a district as a result of the 2010 census. King's district was renumbered the 4th, and pushed well to the east, absorbing Mason City and Ames. This placed King and his predecessor, Latham, in the same district. Latham opted to move to the reconfigured 3rd District to challenge Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell. The reconfigured district was, at least on paper, much more competitive than King's old district. The old 5th had a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+9, while the new 4th had a PVI of R+4. The new 4th was also mostly new to King; he retained only 45% of his former territory. It closely resembled the territory that Latham had represented from 1995 to 2003.


title: Steve King

text: Soon afterward, former Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack, the wife of former governor and then current U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack, announced she was moving to the new 4th to challenge King. King received the endorsement of Mitt Romney, who said, "I'm looking here at Steve King because this man needs to be your congressman again. I want him as my partner in Washington, D.C." King won reelection to a sixth term, defeating Vilsack 53%–45%. King won all but seven counties, none of which he had previously represented: Webster, Boone, Story, Chickasaw, Floyd, Cerro Gordo, and Winnebago. King later said of his 2012 victory, "I faced $7 million, the best of everything Democrats can throw at me, their dream candidate and everything that can come from the Obama machine, and prevailed through all of that with 55 percent of my district that was new."


title: Steve King

text: King faced his closest race to date in 2018, receiving 50.4% of the vote to 47% for Democratic nominee J. D. Scholten; Libertarian candidate Charles Aldrich received 2%. King likely prevailed due to Governor Kim Reynolds carrying the district with almost 61 percent of the vote in her bid for a full term. Turnout was down from the 2016 election; 370,259 voted in 2016, compared to 313,251 in 2018.


title: Steve King

text: It was the closest a Democrat has come to winning what is now the 4th since Berkley Bedell left office in what was then the 6th District in 1986. That year, Republican Fred Grandy won with only 50.1 percent of the vote. Since then, the only other time a Republican has not won election by double digits in this district (which became the 5th in 1993 and the 4th in 2013) was King's 2012 race against Vilsack.


title: Steve King

text: In the wake of being stripped of his committee seats, King faced a credible primary challenger in State Senator Randy Feenstra, who represented much of the district's northwest portion. Feenstra outraised King by a significant margin. Ultimately, King lost to Feenstra, taking 36.7 percent of the vote to Feenstra's 45.7 percent.


title: Steve King

text: King is considered an outspoken fiscal and social conservative. After winning the 2002 Republican nomination, he said that he intended to use his seat in Congress to "move the political center of gravity in Congress to the right." During the 110th Congress, King voted with the majority of the Republican Party 90.9% of the time. He has continuously voted for Iraq War legislation, supported surge efforts and opposed a time table for troop withdrawals. During the 112th United States Congress King was one of 40 "staunch" members of the Republican Study Committee who frequently voted against Republican party leadership and vocally expressed displeasure with House bills. In August 2015, King was named the least effective member of Congress by InsideGov due to his persistent failures to get legislation out of committee. On December 18, 2019, King voted against both articles of impeachment against Trump, as did all 195 Republicans who voted.


title: Steve King

text: King served on the Judiciary, Agriculture, and Small Business Committees until January 14, 2019, when he was removed from all committee assignments after bipartisan condemnation of his remarks on white supremacy.


title: Steve King

text: King opposes abortion. He has a 100% rating from the National Right to Life Committee, indicating an anti-abortion voting record. King has also voted against allowing human embryonic stem cell research. He supports the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which would ban federal funding of abortions except in cases of what the bill calls "forcible rape". This would remove the coverage from Medicaid that covers abortions for victims of statutory rape or incest.


title: Steve King

text: After Todd Akin made a controversial statement about "legitimate rape" on August 19, 2012, King came to his defense, characterizing the critical response as "petty personal attacks" and calling Akin a "strong Christian man". King said that Akin's voting record should be more important than his words. Six months later, King's defense of Akin (who lost his race) was seen as politically damaging by Steven J. Law of the Conservative Victory Project, a group including Karl Rove that was working to discourage conservative candidates they deemed unelectable, to enable more viable conservative candidates to gain office. Law said, "We're concerned about Steve King's Todd Akin problem."


title: Steve King

text: King sponsored legislation to ban abortion of a fetus that has a detectable heartbeat, which can in some cases occur as early as 6 weeks (before many women know they are pregnant). A physician who performs a prohibited abortion would be subject to a fine, up to five years in prison, or both. A woman who undergoes a prohibited abortion could not be prosecuted for violating the provisions of this bill.


title: Steve King

text: In August 2019, while defending his opposition to abortion in cases of rape or incest, King asked, "What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?" Iowa State Senator Randy Feenstra, who went on to defeat King in the 2020 Republican primary, tweeted: "I am 100% pro-life but Steve King's bizarre comments and behavior diminish our message & damage our cause". Wyoming representative Liz Cheney called King's comments "appalling and bizarre" and called for his resignation. King's comments were also criticized by Steve Scalise, Kevin McCarthy, Donald Trump, and Elise Jordan.


title: Steve King

text: In February 2010, King tweeted about chasing and shooting a raccoon that had tried to enter his house during a blizzard, prompting criticism from animal rights groups. He defended his actions, saying the animal might have been rabid.


title: Steve King

text: In July 2012, King opposed the McGovern Amendment (to the 2012 Farm Bill) to establish misdemeanor penalties for knowingly attending an organized animal fight and felony penalties for bringing a minor to such a fight. He was also one of 39 House members to vote against an upgrade of penalties for transporting fighting animals across state lines in 2007. King received a score of zero on the 2012 Humane Society Legislative Fund's "Humane Scorecard". Afterward, he put out a video clarifying his position, stating that it would be putting animals above humans if it were legal to watch humans fight but not animals. The issue prompted a feature segment on "The Colbert Report" criticizing King's reasoning. The main differences cited between human combat sports and dogfights were the ability to choose to participate and the consequences of losing a match.


title: Steve King

text: On September 24, 2010, comedian Stephen Colbert testified to the House Agriculture Committee about the working conditions of migrant farmworkers. King said he wanted to eliminate them, replacing them with "everyday American workers". He also said, "Maybe we should be spending less time watching Comedy Central and more time considering all the real jobs that are out there, ones that require real hard labor". He praised the "Joe the Plumbers of the world who many days would prefer the aroma of fresh dirt to that of the sewage from American elitists who disparage them even as they flush." Colbert, in his faux-conservative character, lampooned King. "This is America! I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican! I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan, and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian."


title: Steve King

text: In July 2012, King introduced an amendment to the House Farm Bill that would legalize previously banned animal agriculture practices such as tail-docking, using banned arsenic-based drugs in chicken feed, and keeping impregnated pigs in small crates. "My language wipes out everything they've done with pork and veal," King said of his amendment. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) President Wayne Pacelle said the measure could nullify "any laws to protect animals, and perhaps ... laws to protect the environment, workers, or public safety."


title: Steve King

text: In May 2013, King introduced another amendment to the House Farm Bill, the Protect Interstate Commerce Act (PICA), saying, "PICA blocks states from requiring 'free range' eggs or 'free range' pork." In 2014, the controversial provision was dropped.


title: Steve King

text: King has dismissed concern over global warming, calling it a "religion" and claiming efforts to address climate change are useless. A day after claiming that climate change was more "a religion than a science," he reasserted that many scientists overreact when discussing the consequences of global warming, saying, "Everything that might result from a warmer planet is always bad in [environmentalists'] analysis. There will be more photosynthesis going on if the Earth gets warmer ... And if sea levels go up 4 or 6 inches, I don't know if we'd know that. We don't know where sea level is even, let alone be able to say that it's going to come up an inch globally because some polar ice caps might melt because there's suspended in the atmosphere."


title: Steve King

text: King endorsed Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, saying Cruz was the "answer to my prayers". He endorsed and strongly supported Donald Trump after Trump won the nomination.


title: Steve King

text: In December 2020, King was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives who signed an amicus brief in support of "Texas v. Pennsylvania", a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden prevailed over incumbent Donald Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of the election held by another state.


title: Steve King

text: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that called signing the amicus brief an act of "election subversion." Additionally, Pelosi reprimanded King and the other House members who supported the lawsuit: "The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House. Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions." New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, citing section three of the 14th Amendment, called for Pelosi to not seat the other Republicans who signed the brief supporting the suit. Pascrell argued that "the text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States. Trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that."


title: Steve King

text: Objecting to "taxpayer-funded subsidies, pet projects and added bureaucracy", King voted against The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in the U.S. House of Representatives, saying, "Our economy will not recover because government spends more. It will recover because people produce more." King also stood out as one of only 11 members of Congress to vote against the $51.8 billion Hurricane Katrina relief package in 2005, claiming there was no comprehensive plan for spending the aid money.


title: Steve King

text: King opposes stricter regulations on gun ownership. In 2017, King said that a bill to close the so-called "gun show loophole" and add background checks for individuals who bought guns at gun shows would ruin "Christmas at the Kings'" if it passed. In 2018, King criticized 18-year-old Parkland shooting survivor X González, attempting to tie González to Communist Cuba. In 2018, he said that easy access to guns should not be blamed for gun violence, but rather video games, cultural changes, lack of prayer in schools, gun-free zones, family break-ups, and the stimulant medication Ritalin.


title: Steve King

text: King is a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and has led attempts to repeal it. He fought against Medicare and Medicaid covering a number of medications such as Viagra, which he called "recreational drugs".


title: Steve King

text: In January 2017, King said that in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, "it has become abundantly clear that the American people have overwhelmingly rejected Obamacare time and time again" and called for congressional Republicans to "take swift action to fulfill our promise to We the People and repeal this unconstitutional and egregious law passed by hook, crook and legislative shenanigan." In May 2017, King said he had moved from supporting the American Health Care Act, the Republican replacement to the Affordable Care Act, to being unsure as a result of benefits such as emergency services, hospitalization and prescription drugs that were added following his backing of the measure: "Once they negotiated [essential health benefits] with the Freedom Caucus and Tuesday Group, it is hard for me to imagine they will bring that language in the Senate, or that it will be effective because they diluted this thing substantially." King added that he and Trump agreed on the need for the federal government to not have a role in health insurance and that Republicans would not have had difficulty repealing the Affordable Care Act had the party prioritized its replacement within the first week of the 115th Congress, in January 2015.


title: Steve King

text: On April 3, 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in "Varnum v. Brien" unanimously that a state ban on same-sex marriage violated Iowa's constitution. King soon commented that the justices "should resign from their position" and the state legislature "must also enact marriage license residency requirements so that Iowa does not become the gay marriage Mecca." King, along with others, mounted a campaign against the three Iowa Supreme Court justices who were up for retention and had ruled on the gay marriage case. King bought $80,000 of radio advertising across the state calling for Iowans to vote against their retention. None of the three was retained.


title: Steve King

text: On October 7, 2014, King was one of 19 members of Congress inducted into the LGBT civil rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign's "Hall of Shame" for his opposition to LGBT equality.


title: Steve King

text: In response to the Supreme Court's 2015 decision "Obergefell v. Hodges", in which the court ruled that same-sex marriage is a constitutionally protected right, King called for a non-binding resolution saying that states may refuse to recognize the decision. He has also called for the abolition of civil marriage. On May 17, 2019, King was one of 173 representatives to vote against the Equality Act.


title: Steve King

text: On February 26, 2010, King went to the House floor to protest Democrats' handling of health care reform and said, "Lobbyists do a very effective and useful job on this Hill ... There's a credibility there in that arena that I think somebody needs to stand up for the lobby, and it is a matter of providing a lot of valuable information."


title: Steve King

text: King voted against the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 which authorizes DHS to nearly double the available H-2B visas for the remainder of FY 2020.


title: Steve King

text: King voted against Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 1158) which effectively prohibits ICE from cooperating with Health and Human Services to detain or remove illegal alien sponsors of unaccompanied alien children (UACs).


title: Steve King

text: King is a proponent of the Great Replacement theory, the theory states that the white population is being replaced by mass non-white immigrants.


title: Steve King

text: "The Washington Post" has described King as "the U.S. congressman most openly affiliated with white nationalism", while "Vanity Fair" has said his opinions in this direction are "barely veiled". David Leonhardt in an opinion piece for "The New York Times" has explicitly identified King as being a "white nationalist". King has stirred controversy and come to prominence by making statements that have been described as racist or racially charged. He is a staunch opponent of immigration and multiculturalism, and has supported far-right European politicians. According to "The Guardian", King "has long been one of the most vociferously anti-immigration members of the House Republican caucus." King has said that he is not a racist.


title: Steve King

text: In October 2018, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Steve Stivers, condemned King as a racist, saying that King's actions and comments were "completely inappropriate" and constituted "white supremacy and hate." The NRCC said it would not help King in his 2018 re-election efforts. Representative Carlos Curbelo described King's comments and actions as "disgusting" and said that he would never vote for someone like King. Senator Ted Cruz called King's rhetoric "divisive" but stopped short of condemning him. Other Republicans, such as House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway, dismissed the idea that King is racist.


title: Steve King

text: In a January 2019 interview with "The New York Times", King asked, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?" He also said of the large increase in representation of minorities and women in the new Democrat-controlled House: "You could look over there and think the Democratic Party is no country for white men." He was subsequently condemned by numerous Republican members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other members of the House Republican leadership. U.S. Senator Tim Scott criticized King harshly in a "Washington Post" op-ed, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called King's remarks "unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position". Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro called for King to be censured and for a primary challenge against King. After the interview was published, and following backlash from across the political spectrum, King issued a statement via Twitter stating that he was "simply a Nationalist", that he did not advocate for "white nationalism and white supremacy", and that "I want to make one thing abundantly clear: I reject those labels and the evil ideology they define." King said "The New York Times" had misunderstood his comments, and that he did not question why "white nationalist" and "white supremacist" were offensive terms. On Twitter, he later stated: "As I told "The New York Times", 'it's not about race; It's never been about race'." The House voted 416–1 to rebuke King's comments; Illinois Representative Bobby Rush was the lone "nay" vote, but only because he believed a rebuke was too lenient and that King deserved to be censured.


title: Steve King

text: In April 2006, when asked if "the US economy simply couldn't function without" the presence of illegal immigrants, King said that he rejected that position "categorically". He said the 77.5 million people between the ages of 16 and 65 in the United States who are not part of the workforce "could be put to work and we could invent machines to replace the rest." In 2006, King called for an electrified fence on the US border, commenting that such fences were successful in containing livestock.


title: Steve King

text: In July 2013, speaking about proposed immigration legislation, King said of illegal immigrants: "For every one who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds—and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert." Despite strong rebukes from both Democrats and other Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, who called his statements "ignorant" and "hateful", and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who called the comments "inexcusable", King defended his comments, saying he got the description from the border patrol.


title: Steve King

text: In July 2015, referencing HUD secretary Julian Castro's remarks on how poorly the Republican Party was doing with Hispanic voters, King responded, "What does Julian Castro know? Does he know that I'm as Hispanic and Latino as he?" King is neither Hispanic nor Latino by either family history or ethnic definition.


title: Steve King

text: In 2016, a journalist for the "Iowa Starting Line" reported that King displayed the Confederate flag on his office desk, although Iowa was part of the Union during the American Civil War. He removed it after a Confederate flag-waver later fatally shot two Iowa police officers. King attempted to block a bill that would remove Andrew Jackson and replace him with Harriet Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill. King praised Bernie Sanders numerous times for his view on immigration, saying they were "closer to mine than it is some of the presidential candidates on the Republican side."


title: Steve King

text: In March 2017, King wrote "culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." When asked about his comments, King stood by them, saying: "you need to teach your children your values" and "with the inter-marriage, I'd like to see an America that is just so homogenous that we look a lot the same". King was rebuked by members of his own party, including Speaker Paul D. Ryan, but praised by white supremacist David Duke and "The Daily Stormer", a neo-Nazi website.


title: Steve King

text: In July 2017, the House Appropriations Committee voted to fund the US-Mexico border wall, allocating $1.6 billion for it. King called for an additional $5 billion for the wall, to be paid for with federal dollars coming from Planned Parenthood, food stamps, and other federal welfare programs, saying, "I would find half of a billion of dollars of that right out of Planned Parenthood's budget, and the rest of it could come out of food stamps and the entitlements that are being spread out for people who have not worked in three generations."


title: Steve King

text: On November 5, 2018, King referred to Mexican immigrants as "dirt" while at a campaign stop. "The Weekly Standard" reported the comment; King denied saying it and called on "The Weekly Standard" to release audio of the remarks. "The Weekly Standard" then released a recording of the exchange, confirming that King had made the remarks. In May 2019, King warned against "presuming that every culture is equal". On September 4, 2019, King posted a video of himself drinking water from water fountains over toilets at migrant facilities. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the GOP as "anti-immigrant" following the video.


title: Steve King

text: On March 7, 2008, during his press engagements to announce his reelection campaign, King made remarks about then U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his middle name "Hussein", saying:


title: Steve King

text: I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name—whatever their religion their father might have been, I'll just say this: When you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States—I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam? I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11.


title: Steve King

text: On March 10, King defended his comments to the Associated Press, saying "[Obama will] certainly be viewed as a savior for them... That's why you will see them supporting him, encouraging him."


title: Steve King

text: Obama said he did not take the comments too seriously, describing King as a person who thrives on making controversial statements to get media coverage. He said, "I would hope [Obama's opponent] Senator [John] McCain would want to distance himself from that kind of inflammatory and offensive remarks." The McCain campaign disavowed King's comments, saying "John McCain rejects the type of politics that degrades our civics... and obviously that extends to Congressman King's statement."


title: Steve King

text: In mid-January 2009, King acknowledged that terrorists were not dancing in the streets, and had made statements opposing Obama. He said he found Obama's decision to use his middle name "Hussein" when sworn in as the 44th President of the United States to be "bizarre" and "a double standard".


title: Steve King

text: In 2010, King speculated that Obama's immigration policies were influenced by racial favoritism toward black people.


title: Steve King

text: In February 2020 on Twitter, King insinuated former DHS official Philip Haney had been murdered as a reprisal for "archiving data that incriminated the highest levels of the Obama administration".


title: Steve King

text: On June 14, 2010, King said on the House floor that racial profiling is an important component of law enforcement: "Some claim that the Arizona law will bring about racial discrimination profiling. First let me say, Mr. Speaker, that profiling has always been an important component of legitimate law enforcement. If you can't profile someone, you can't use those common sense indicators that are before your very eyes. Now, I think it's wrong to use racial profiling for the reasons of discriminating against people, but it's not wrong to use race or other indicators for the sake of identifying people that are violating the law." As an example of profiling, King described an instance when a taxi driver would stop for him before he had to hail a cab, just because he was in a business suit.


title: Steve King

text: The same day, on G. Gordon Liddy's radio program, King said that Obama's policies favored black people: "The president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race—on the side that favors the black person in the case of Professor Gates and Officer Crowley." On January 13, 2018, King tweeted that racial oppression was a "thing of the past".


title: Steve King

text: On July 18, 2016, King participated in a panel discussion on MSNBC, during which a panelist from "Esquire" magazine suggested that the 2016 convention could be the last in which "old white people would command the Republican Party's attention". King responded, "This whole 'old white people' business does get a little tired, Charlie. I'd ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?" Panel moderator Chris Hayes later described King's comments as odious and preposterous. Panel member April Ryan described them as "in-my-face racism". That evening, King was asked about his comments during an interview with ABC News. King said he had meant to say that "Western civilization", rather than "white people", is the "superior culture": "when you describe Western civilization, that can mean much of Western civilization happens to be Caucasians. But we should not apologize for our culture or our civilization. The contributions that were made by Western civilization itself, and by Americans, by Americans of all races, stand far above the rest of the world. The Western civilization and the American civilization are a superior culture."


title: Steve King

text: In September 2014, King called for the Obama administration to begin surveilling mosques to monitor recruitment to ISIS. Although "BuzzFeed News" said there was no evidence of such recruitment, King claimed it was occurring in parts of the United States. On December 9, 2015, he told MSNBC that he agreed with his party that Islam is "incompatible" with American life. In an interview with "Breitbart News", King said he did not want Muslims working in meat-packing plants, because "I don't want people doing my pork that won't eat it, let alone hope I go to hell for eating pork chops." On March 7, 2019, he voted "present" on a resolution the US House passed condemning anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim discrimination. On August 27, 2019, King joked about Uyghur Muslims detained in China's Xinjiang re-education camps being forced to eat pork.


title: Steve King

text: In May 2004, King compared the torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison to "hazing". He said the abuse was similar to the crimes "committed by Jeffrey Dahmer compared to those of Heidi Fleiss", and that "if Tom Harkin and his Democrat allies want to continue to act like political cannibals and pitch partisan hooey to anyone who'll listen, then they're eating their own."


title: Steve King

text: King opposes affirmative action. He has said: "There's been legislation that's been brought through this House that sets aside benefits for women and minorities. The only people that it excludes are white men... Pretty soon, white men are going to notice they are the ones being excluded." In 2015, King introduced a bill that would require colleges to report affirmative action.


title: Steve King

text: On March 12, 2017, King expressed his support for Geert Wilders, a far-right Dutch politician known for his anti-Islam views, leading up to the election in the Netherlands, stating, "Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny" and "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies," referring to his views on ending birthright citizenship and promoting "an America that's just so homogenous that we look a lot [sic] the same." His statements received criticism from other politicians, including several Republicans, with Jeb Bush responding that "America is a nation of immigrants"; despite the backlash, King defended his statements. Others reported that King's statements were well received among white nationalists, garnering support from prominent members of that community. The next day on CNN, King said he was referring to culture, not ethnicity, saying: "It's the culture, not the blood. If you can go anywhere in the world and adopt these babies and put them into households that were already assimilated in America, those babies will grow up as American as any other baby with as much patriotism and love of country as any other baby." Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke praised King's statement.


title: Steve King

text: King supported French right-wing populist politician, leader of the Front National Marine Le Pen in the French 2017 presidential election. He sent her a message stating: "Our shared civilization must be saved".


title: Steve King

text: King supported Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a right-wing populist and strong opponent of admitting migrants during the European migrant crisis. On December 8, 2017, King tweeted Orbán's quote that "Diversity is not our strength. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, 'Mixing cultures will not lead to a higher quality of life but a lower one'." "Assimilation has become a dirty word to the multiculturalist Left. Assimilation, not diversity, is our American strength," he tweeted.


title: Steve King

text: In June 2018, he retweeted a comment by Mark Collett, a British neo-Nazi and self-described admirer of Hitler, about Europe "waking up" to mass immigration.


title: Steve King

text: On August 24, 2018, King was interviewed by the Austrian website "Unzensuriert" ("Uncensored"), which is connected to the country's Freedom Party, part of the First Kurz government. He agreed with the interviewer that American financier George Soros is involved with the "Great Replacement", a far-right conspiracy theory that claims to have identified a plot to replace white Europeans with minorities and immigrants.


title: Steve King

text: King also endorsed right-wing Canadian political commentator Faith Goldy in the 2018 Toronto mayoral election. Goldy participated in a Neo-Nazi podcast and has been described as far-right or alt-right. In response to the Goldy endorsement, and King's other racially contentious remarks, Minnesota-based agricultural cooperative Land O'Lakes ended its support for his reelection.


title: Steve King

text: In February 2021, after he left office, it was announced that he would be a speaker at Nick Fuentes' America First Political Action Conference.


title: Steve King

text: King subscribes to the white genocide conspiracy theory, and has stated this view while in Congress. "Mother Jones" and other media have reported more generally on his belief in and promotion of the conspiracy theory. In 2018, King spoke to an Austrian far-right publication about "the great replacement", which "The New York Times" described as "a conspiracy theory on the far right that claims shadowy elites are working behind the scenes to reduce white populations to minorities in their own countries." The theory gained notoriety after the alleged perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings titled his manifesto after it.


title: Steve King

text: In late October 2018, after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) sent the House speaker, Paul Ryan, an open letter calling on him to censure King, citing King's relationship with far-right Freedom Party of Austria and other far-right groups in Europe. The letter accused King of engaging in antisemitic smearing of the Jewish investor and philanthropist George Soros. It concluded, "Rep. King has brought dishonor onto the House of Representatives. We strongly urge you and the congressional leadership to demonstrate your revulsion with Rep. King's actions by stripping him of his subcommittee chairmanship and initiating proceedings to formally censure or otherwise discipline him." Two leaders within the Iowa Jewish community also criticized King for being "an enthusiastic crusader for the same types of abhorrent beliefs held by the Pittsburgh shooter".


title: Steve King

text: After King's loss in the 2020 Republican primary in Iowa's 4th Congressional District, he wrote a book giving his account of what happened and traveling for several months to promote it. The book is entitled "Walking Through the Fire: My Fight for the Heart and Soul of America". It was put out by Fidelis Publishing, known for publishing Christian and Conservative books. King says he was motivated to write lest "the media and the elitists in the Republican Party write a political epitaph" for him. The book maintains that freedom of speech is being undermined and that the Democratic party is weaponizing terms like "white nationalist" and "white supremacist". King claims his attempts to warn America about this was why he lost his party's support "I'm trying to tell America, and what do they [Republican leadership] do? Politically assassinate me for trying to let them know what's happening to all of us."


title: Steve King

text: He told the De Moines Register that while he currently had no plans to return to politics, he would if there was a "groundswell". Going on to say "I don't see that at this point. But I do see a lot of support, and we've got a lot of policies and causes that we need to push. We've got state conventions coming up and a platform to be shaped."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: The Women's March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president. It was prompted by Trump's policy positions and rhetoric, which protesters called misogynistic or otherwise threatening to the rights of women. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. The goal of the annual marches is to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women's rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, disability justice, reproductive rights, the environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, workers' rights and tolerance. According to organizers, the goal was to "send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women's rights are human rights".


title: 2017 Women's March

text: The main protest was in Washington, D.C., and is known as the Women's March on Washington with many other marches taking place worldwide. The Washington March was streamed live on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. The Washington March drew over 470,000 people. Between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people participated in the marches in the U.S., approximately 1.0 to 1.6 percent of the U.S. population. Worldwide participation has been estimated at over seven million. At least 408 marches were reported to have been planned in the U.S. and 168 in 81 other countries. After the marches, organizers reported that around 673 marches took place worldwide, on all seven continents, 29 in Canada, 20 in Mexico, and 1 in Antarctica. The crowds were peaceful: no arrests were made in D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, or Seattle, where a combined total of about two million people marched. The organization's website states that they wanted to adhere to "the nonviolent ideology of the Civil Rights movement". Following the march, the organizers of the Women's March on Washington posted the "10 Actions for the first 100 Days" campaign for joint activism to keep up momentum from the march.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: On November 9, 2016, the first day after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, in reaction to Trump's election campaign and political views, and to his defeat of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Teresa Shook of Hawaii created a Facebook event and invited friends to march on Washington in protest. Similar Facebook pages created by Evvie Harmon, Fontaine Pearson, Bob Bland (a New York fashion designer), Breanne Butler, and others quickly led to thousands of women signing up to march. Harmon, Pearson, and Butler decided to unite their efforts and consolidate their pages, beginning the official Women's March on Washington. To ensure that the march was led by women of differing races and backgrounds, Vanessa Wruble, co-founder, and co-president of Okayafrica, served as Head of Campaign Operations and brought on Tamika D. Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour to serve as National Co-Chairs alongside Bland. Former Miss New Jersey USA Janaye Ingram served as Head of Logistics. Filmmaker Paola Mendoza served as artistic director and a National Organizer.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: During "the first hours of the first meeting for what would become the Women's March," Mallory and Perez allegedly put forward a debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory regarding Jews and the slave trade. No one who was in the room spoke about it for almost two years. Mallory and Bland deny that the offensive content in the conversation took place, but, according to "Tablet Magazine", "multiple sources with knowledge of what happened confirmed the story." Several journalists who shared the story were emailed by a PR agency which claimed to be able to disprove the article, but would only share their information on condition of journalists keeping it off the record. Andrea González-Ramírez, a journalist from Refinery29, claimed to have agreed to the PR firm's request, but the PR firm's fact checking failed to disprove Tablet Magazines claims.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: According to "The New York Times", opposition to and defiance of Trump infused the protests, which were sometimes directly called anti-Trump protests. Organizers stated that they were "not targeting Trump specifically" and that the event was "more about being proactive about women's rights". Sarsour called it "a stand on social justice and human rights issues ranging from race, ethnicity, gender, religion, immigration and healthcare". Wruble stated that "it's about feminism [...] But it's about more than that: It's about basic equality for all people."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Planned Parenthood partnered with the march by providing staff and offering knowledge related to planning a large-scale event. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said that the march would "send a strong message to the incoming administration that millions of people across this country are prepared to fight attacks on reproductive healthcare, abortion services and access to Planned Parenthood, [which] hopes that [in the future] many of the protesters will mobilize in its defense when Trump and congressional Republicans make their attempt to strip the organization of millions in federal funding". The national organizing director stressed the importance of continuing action at a local level and remaining active after the event.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Vanessa Wruble, co-founder, brought on Tamika D. Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour to serve as National Co-Chairs alongside Bob Bland. The four co-chairs were Linda Sarsour, the executive director of the Arab American Association of New York; Tamika Mallory, a political organizer and former executive director of the National Action Network; Carmen Perez, an executive director of the political action group The Gathering for Justice; and Bob Bland, a fashion designer who focuses on ethical manufacturing. Gloria Steinem, Harry Belafonte, LaDonna Harris, Angela Davis and Dolores Huerta served as honorary co-chairs.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Seven women coordinated marches outside the U.S. The women were: Brit-Agnes Svaeri, Oslo, Norway; Marissa McTasney, Toronto, Canada; Karen Olson, Geneva, Switzerland; Kerry Haggerty, London, United Kingdom; Rebecca Turnbow, Sydney, Australia; and Breanne Butler and Evvie Harmon in the United States. The women organized the international marches through social media and had weekly Skype meetings to plot strategy.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: On January 12, the march organizers released a policy platform addressing reproductive rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, religious discrimination (primarily that against Muslim Americans), LGBTQ rights, gender and racial inequities (primarily those that favor men and Non-Hispanic whites, respectively), workers' rights, and other issues. "Build bridges, not walls" (a reference to Trump's proposals for a border wall) became popular worldwide after the Trump's inaugural address, and was a common refrain throughout the march.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: The organizers also addressed environmental issues: "We believe that every person and every community in our nation has the right to clean water, clean air, and access to and enjoyment of public lands. We believe that our environment and our climate must be protected and that our land and natural resources cannot be exploited for corporate gain or greed—especially at the risk of public safety and health."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Originally billed as the "Million Women March," Wruble renamed the event to mirror the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the historic civil rights rally on the Mall where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. The rally also paid tribute to the 1997 Million Woman March in Philadelphia, in which hundreds of thousands of African American women are said to have participated.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Because of scheduling conflicts at the Lincoln Memorial, a permit was secured on December 9 to start the march on Independence Avenue at the southwest corner of the Capitol building and continue along the National Mall.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: By January 20, 2017, 222,000 people had RSVP'd as going to the Washington, D.C., march and 251,000 had indicated interest. On January 16, 2017, Fox News reported that authorities were expecting "a crowd of almost 500,000 people", and the permit for the march issued by the National Park Service was revised by the head of D.C.'s Homeland Security department to half a million people—significantly more than the estimated attendance at President Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony the previous day.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: In late December, organizers announced that over 100 organizations would provide assistance during the march and support the event across their social media platforms. By January 18, more than 400 organizations were listed as "partners" on the March's official website.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Planned Parenthood (which has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act) and the Natural Resources Defense Council were listed as the two "premier partners". Other organizations listed as partners included the AFL–CIO, Amnesty International USA, the Mothers of the Movement, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Organization for Women, MoveOn.org, Human Rights Watch, Code Pink, Black Girls Rock!, the NAACP, the American Indian Movement, Emily's List, Oxfam, Greenpeace USA, and the League of Women Voters.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: On January 13, event organizers granted the anti-abortion feminist group New Wave Feminists partnership status. But after the organization's involvement was publicized in "The Atlantic", it was removed from the partners page on the march's website. Other anti-abortion groups that had been granted partnership status, including Abby Johnson's And Then There Were None (ATTWN) and Stanton Healthcare, were subsequently unlisted as partners as well. New Wave Feminists and Johnson still participated in the official march, alongside other anti-abortion groups such as ATTWN, Students for Life of America, and "Life Matters Journal".


title: 2017 Women's March

text: While organizers had originally expected over 200,000 people, the march ended up drawing between 440,000 to 500,000 in Washington D.C. The Washington Metro system had its second-busiest day ever with over a million trips taken, considerably larger than the inauguration day's ridership and second only to the first inauguration of Barack Obama. "The New York Times" reported that crowd-scientists estimate that the Women's March was three times the size of the Trump inauguration, which they estimate at 160,000 attendees. However, "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" have stated that it is difficult to accurately calculate crowd size and other estimates of the Trump inauguration range from 250,000 to 600,000 people.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: An estimated 3,300,000 – 4,600,000 people participated in the United States and up to 5 million did worldwide.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Packed cars, buses, airplanes, and trains commuted protesters to the march. The large crowds enabled Washington's Metro to break 1,000,000 passengers for only the second time in its history. The 1,001,613 trips are the second busiest day, the highest counted total (as the highest, from Obama's First Inauguration is only an estimate) and the highest single-day ridership for a weekend day breaking the previous record of 825,437 trips set during the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. It was also reported that over 45,000 disabled people in attendance, led by the organizing efforts of disability justice activist Mia Ives-Rublee.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: The official list of speakers included America Ferrera, Scarlett Johansson, and Gloria Steinem. Other speakers were Sophie Cruz, Angela Davis, and Michael Moore, as well as Cecile Richards, Ilyasah Shabazz, Janet Mock, LaDonna Harris, Janelle Monáe, Maryum Ali, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sister Simone Campbell, Ashley Judd, Melissa Harris-Perry, Randi Weingarten, Van Jones, Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Roslyn Brock, Mayor Muriel Bowser, Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Kamala Harris (D-CA), Donna Hylton, Ai-jen Poo, and Raquel Willis.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Steinem commented "Our constitution does not begin with 'I, the President.' It begins with, 'We, the People.' I am proud to be one of thousands who have come to Washington to make clear that we will keep working for a democracy in which we are linked as human beings, not ranked by race or gender or class or any other label."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Ferrera stated, "If we – the millions of Americans who believe in common decency, in the greater good, in justice for all – if we fall into the trap by separating ourselves by our causes and our labels, then we will weaken our fight and we will lose. But if we commit to what aligns us, if we stand together steadfast and determined, then we stand a chance of saving the soul of our country."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Johansson called for long-term change: "Once the heaviness [of the election] began to subside, an opportunity has presented itself to make real long-term change, not just for future Americans, but in the way we view our responsibility to get involved with and stay active in our communities. Let this weight not drag you down, but help to get your heels stuck in."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: The youngest presenter at the Washington D.C. march, 6-year-old Sophie Cruz, said, "Let us fight with love, faith, and courage so that our families will not be destroyed," and ended her speech saying, "I also want to tell the children not to be afraid, because we are not alone. There are still many people that have their hearts filled with love. Let's keep together and fight for the rights. God is with us." Cruz repeated her speech in Spanish.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Alicia Keys performed at the rally saying, "We are mothers. We are caregivers. We are artists. We are activists. We are entrepreneurs, doctors, leaders of industry and technology. Our potential is unlimited. We rise." Angela Davis said, "We recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages." Maryum Ali also spoke, saying, "Don't get frustrated, get involved. Don't complain, organize."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Marches occurred worldwide, with 198 in 84 other countries. Organisers of the event reported 673 marches worldwide, including 20 in Mexico and 29 in Canada. Women in India also organized a nationwide march on January 21, 2017, called I Will Go Out to demand access to safe public spaces. It was held in small countries such as Belgium, Costa Rica, Latvia. The movement also took place in countries in Africa, including Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania all held marches calling for women to have equal rights, and specifically demanding an end to violence against women.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: U.S. Senator Cory Booker, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson attended the Washington march. Anne-Marie Slaughter, president of New America and former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department, attended the New York City march. John Lewis attended the Atlanta rally, which saw more than 60,000 march to the Georgia State Capitol.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont delivered a speech at the march in Montpelier in front of the Vermont State House, as did other Vermont political figures, such as former Governor Madeleine Kunin and current Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman. Both Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey participated in the Boston Women's March, along with Mayor Marty Walsh.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand since October 2017, gave a speech after marching in Auckland; New Zealand was chronologically the first country in the world to participate in the march.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: In San Francisco, performer and activist Joan Baez serenaded the crowd with "We Shall Overcome" in Spanish. Comedian Colin Mochrie and Actress Eliza Dushku attended Boston's march. Singer Carole King was among 30 residents rallying in Stanley, Idaho. Author Stephen King participated in a march in Sarasota, Florida. Author Judy Blume participated in a march in Key West, Florida. Singer Kacey Musgraves and comedian Chris Rock were both present in Nashville, Tennessee. Seth Rogen tweeted video from New Orleans. Actor Julia Sweeney addressed an indoor crowd in her native town of Spokane, Washington. Actor Rami Malek was present in Paris, France.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: The Pussyhat Project was a nationwide effort initiated by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman, a screenwriter and architect located in Los Angeles, to create pussyhats, pink hats to be worn at the march for visual impact. In response to this call, crafters all over the United States began making these hats using patterns provided on the project website for use with either a knitting method, crocheting and even sewing with fabrics. The project's goal was to have one million hats handed out at the Washington March. The hats are made using pink yarns or fabrics and were originally designed to be a positive form of protest for Trump's inauguration by Krista Suh. Suh, from Los Angeles, wanted a hat for the cooler climate in Washington, D. C. and made herself a hat for the protest, realizing the potential: "we could all wear them, make a unified statement". One of the project founders, Jayna Zweiman, stated "I think it's resonating a lot because we're really saying that no matter who you are or where you are, you can be politically active." Suh and Zwieman worked with Kat Coyle, the owner of a local knitting supply shop called The Little Knittery, to come up with the original design. The project launched in November 2016 and quickly became popular on social media with over 100,000 downloads of the pattern to make the hat.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: The name refers to the resemblance of the top corners of the hats to cat ears and attempts to reclaim the derogatory term "pussy", a play on Trump's widely reported 2005 remarks that women would let him "grab them by the pussy". Many of the hats worn by marchers in Washington, D.C., were created by crafters who were unable to attend and wished them to be worn by those who could, to represent their presence. Those hats optionally contained notes from the crafters to the wearers, expressing support. They were distributed by the crafters themselves, by yarn stores at the points of origin, carried to the event by marchers, and also distributed at the destination. The production of the hats caused reported shortages of pink knitting yarn across the United States. On the day of the march, NPR compared the hats to the "Make America Great Again" hats worn by Trump supporters, in that both represented groups that had at one point been politically marginalized; both sent "simultaneously unifying and antagonistic" messages; and both were simple in their messages. Pussyhats were featured later on the fashion runway, and on the covers of "Time" and "The New Yorker".


title: 2017 Women's March

text: In Richmond, Virginia, attendees of the March on Washington participated in an "Art of Activism" series of workshops at Studio Two Three, a printmaking studio for artists in Scott's Addition.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: In Los Angeles, actor Amir Talai was carrying the sign "I'll see you nice white ladies at the next #blacklivesmatter march right?" to express frustration at the lack of participation by white Americans in the Black Lives Matter movement, and simultaneously hopeful of encouraging them to do so. The photo of Talai with the sign went viral over the internet.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: In January 2020, the National Archives acknowledged that it altered photographs of the Women's March on Washington, blurring the word "Trump" in a sign that reads, "God Hates Trump" and another that reads, "Trump & GOP — Hands Off Women" as well as other placards that referenced parts of a woman's anatomy. A spokesperson for the National Archives explained that the censorship was designed to avoid politicizing the event and to protect children and young people who might see the signs.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: While the march aims to create a social movement, Marcia Chatelain of Georgetown University's Center for Social Justice commented that its success will depend on the marchers' ability to maintain momentum in the following weeks. "One of the goals of any type of march or any type of visible sign of solidarity is to get inspired, to inspire people to do more. And the question is, at the march, what kind of organizational structures or movements will also be present to help people know how to channel their energy for the next day and for the long haul?" Historian Michael Kazin also commented on the importance of a long-term strategy: "All successful movements in American history have both inside and outside strategy. If you're just protesting, and it just stops there, you're not going to get anything done."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: In the aftermath of the protest, museum curators around the world sought to gather signs and other cultural artifacts of the marches.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Many members of the U.S. House of Representatives announced that they would not attend Trump's inauguration ceremony, with the numbers growing after he made disparaging remarks about veteran House member and civil rights leader John Lewis. Some of them said they would attend the Women's March.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Maine Representative Chellie Pingree said she would instead visit a Planned Parenthood center and a business owned by immigrants on Inauguration Day before going to Washington to appear on stage with other politicians who refused to attend. "We need to do everything we can to let the incoming administration know we are not happy about their agenda. I've had unprecedented numbers of my constituents calling me worried about healthcare, the environment, public education, and they feel disrespected," she said.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: On January 22, 2017, Trump wrote on his personal Twitter account: "Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly." Two hours later, he sent a more placatory tweet: "Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views." A White House official criticized the March for not welcoming abortion rights opponents, and then criticized Madonna's comment that she "thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House".


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Senator Bernie Sanders, who attended the March in Montpelier, Vermont, said Trump should listen to the protesters: "Listen to the needs of women. Listen to the needs of the immigrant community. Listen to the needs of workers. Listen to what's going on with regards to climate change ... Modify your positions. Let's work together to try to save this planet and protect the middle class."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, offered her support on Twitter, calling the march "awe-inspiring" and stated "[I] hope it brought joy to others as it did to me".


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Following a tweet that offended other lawmakers and the public, Bill Kintner resigned from his position as Nebraska State Senator.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: John Carman, a Republican official in South Jersey mocked the Women's March, asking if the protest would "be over in time for them to cook dinner". He lost the next election on November 7, 2017, against a political newcomer, Ashley Bennett.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, had planned to give their human rights award to the 2017 Women's March. After a German Jewish organization, however, protested in an open letter, accusing the organizers of antisemitic statements and ties to antisemites, the foundation put the award on ice.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Apart from the celebrities present at the march, others such as Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen made statements of support for it. The latter, who endorsed Hillary Clinton and is a friend to Barack Obama, gave a speech during a concert in Australia, saying, "The E Street Band is glad to be here in Western Australia. But we're a long way from home, and our hearts and spirits are with the hundreds of thousands of women and men that marched yesterday in every city in America and in Melbourne who rallied against hate and division and in support of tolerance, inclusion, reproductive rights, civil rights, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, the environment, wage equality, gender equality, healthcare, and immigrant rights. We stand with you. We are the new American resistance."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Cyndi Lauper commented on Madonna's controversial speech at the Washington march, saying, "Anger is not better than clarity and humanity. That is what opens people's minds. When you want to change people's mind, you have to share your real story."


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Jon Voight called the march "destructive" and said it was "against the president and against the government". He was particularly critical of Shia LaBeouf and march participant Miley Cyrus, saying "they have a lot of followers" and felt their stances were "teaching treason".


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Piers Morgan, a friend of Trump's, stated the march was a reaction by women that "a man won" and that "At its core, it was about Trump-hating and resentment that he won and Hillary lost". He also felt that it was democratic to protest, but not due to the result of a democratic election. In response to Morgan's comments about the march, Ewan McGregor canceled his appearance on "Good Morning Britain", which Morgan was hosting.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Following the march, the organizers of the Women's March on Washington posted the "10 Actions for the first 100 Days" campaign to keep up the momentum from the march. The first action included contacting senators about concerns, with an option of using "Hear Our Voice" postcards. A new action was provided every 10 days.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: Filmmaker Michael Moore called for 100 days of resistance, for Trump's first 100 days of his presidency.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: In July 2017, the Women's March official Twitter feed celebrated the birthday of Assata Shakur, an African-American on the FBI most wanted terrorists list who was convicted of murder, leading to criticism from conservative media outlets. In an August 1, 2017, editorial, Bari Weiss criticized three co-chairs for their association with Louis Farrakhan, and for failing to reject anti-Semitism. In a reply letter, co-chair Bob Bland dismissed critics as "apologists for the status quo, racist ideology and the white nationalist patriarchy".


title: 2017 Women's March

text: In October 2017, leaders of the decentralized Women's Marches across the country formed a new organization, March On, and launched a Super PAC called March On's Fight Back PAC. Led by Vanessa Wruble, one of the co-founders and chief architects of the Women's March on Washington, March On announced the goal of creating political change through their "March on the Polls" campaign, including marching people to voting booths for the November 2018 midterms for a "March on the Midterms". "March on aims to coordinate actions at the federal, state, and local level.


title: 2017 Women's March

text: On January 21, 2018, a second Women's March was held, taking place in cities around the world. Demonstrations were also held in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.


title: Sundanese people

text: The Sunda or Sundanese (; ) are an indigenous ethnic group native to the western region of Java island in Indonesia, primarily West Java. They number approximately 42 million and form Indonesia's second most populous ethnic group. They speak the Sundanese language, which is part of the Austronesian languages.


title: Sundanese people

text: The western third of the island of Java, namely the provinces of West Java, Banten, and Jakarta, as well as the westernmost part of Central Java, is called by the Sundanese people "Tatar Sunda" or "Pasundan" (meaning Sundanese land).


title: Sundanese people

text: Sundanese migrants can also be found in Lampung and South Sumatra, and to a lesser extent in Central Java and East Java.


title: Sundanese people

text: The Sundanese people can also be found on several other islands in Indonesia such as Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali and Papua.


title: Sundanese people

text: The Sundanese are of Austronesian origins and are thought to have originated in Taiwan. They migrated through the Philippines and reached Java between 1,500 BC and 1,000 BC. Nevertheless, there is also a hypothesis that argues that the Austronesian ancestors of contemporary Sundanese people originally came from Sundaland, a massive sunken peninsula that today forms the Java Sea, the Malacca and Sunda Straits and the islands between them. According to a recent genetic study, Sundanese, together with Javanese and Balinese, has almost an equal ratio of genetic marker shared between Austronesian and Austroasiatic ancestries.


title: Sundanese people

text: The "Sunda Wiwitan" belief contains the mythical origin of Sundanese people; Sang Hyang Kersa, the supreme divine being in ancient Sundanese belief created seven bataras (deities) in "Sasaka Pusaka Buana" (The Sacred Place on Earth). The oldest of these bataras is called Batara Cikal and is considered the ancestor of the Kanekes people. The other six bataras ruled various locations in Sunda lands in Western Java. A Sundanese legend of Sangkuriang contains the memory of the prehistoric ancient lake in Bandung basin highland, which suggest that Sundanese already inhabit the region since the Mesolithic era, at least 20,000 years ago. Another popular Sundanese proverb and legend mentioned the creation of Parahyangan (Priangan) highlands, the heartland of the Sundanese realm; "When the hyangs (gods) were smiling, the land of Parahyangan was created". This legend suggested the Parahyangan highland as the playland or the abode of gods, as well as suggesting its natural beauty.


title: Sundanese people

text: The earliest historical polity that appeared in the Sundanese realm in the Western part of Java was the kingdom of Tarumanagara, which flourished between the 4th and 7th centuries. Hindu influences reached the Sundanese people as early as the 4th century CE, as is evident in Tarumanagara inscriptions. The adoption of this dharmic faith in the Sundanese way of life was, however, never as intense as their Javanese counterparts. It seems that despite the central court beginning to adopt Hindu-Buddhist culture and institution, the majority of common Sundanese still retained their native natural and ancestral worship. By the 4th century, the older megalithic culture was probably still alive and well next to the penetrating Hindu influences. Court cultures flourished in ancient times, for example, during the era of Sunda Kingdom. However, the Sundanese appear not to have had the resources nor desire to construct large religious monuments. The traditional rural Sundanese method of rice farming, by "ladang" or "huma" (dry rice farming), also contributed to small populations of sparsely inhabited Sundanese villages.


title: Sundanese people

text: Geographic constraints that isolate each region also led Sundanese villages to enjoy their simple way of life and their independence even more. That was probably the factor that would contribute to the carefree nature, egalitarian, conservative, independent and somewhat individualistic social outlook of the Sundanese people. The Sundanese seems to love and revere their nature in spiritual ways, leading to them adopting some taboos to conserve nature and maintain the ecosystem. The conservative tendency and their somewhat opposition to foreign influences are demonstrated in extreme isolationist measures adopted keenly by Kanekes or Baduy people. They have rules against interacting with outsiders and adopting foreign ideas, technology, and ways of life. They have also set some taboos, such as not cutting trees or harming forest creatures, to conserve their natural ecosystem.


title: Sundanese people

text: One of the earliest historical records that mention the name "Sunda" appears in the Sanghyang Tapak inscription dated 952 saka (1030 CE) discovered in Cibadak, near Sukabumi. In 1225, a Chinese writer named Chou Ju-kua, in his book "Chu-fan-chi", describes the port of "Sin-t'o" (Sunda), which probably refers to the port of Banten or Kalapa. By examining these records, it seems that the name "Sunda" started to appear in the early 11th century as a Javanese term used to designate their western neighbours. A Chinese source more specifically refers to it as the port of Banten or Sunda Kelapa. After the formation and consolidation of the Sunda Kingdom's unity and identity during the Pajajaran era under the rule of Sri Baduga Maharaja (popularly known as King Siliwangi), the shared common identity of Sundanese people was more firmly established. They adopted the name "Sunda" to identify their kingdom, their people and their language.


title: Sundanese people

text: Inland Pasundan is mountainous and hilly, and until the 19th century, it was thickly forested and sparsely populated. The Sundanese traditionally live in small and isolated hamlets, rendering control by indigenous courts difficult. The Sundanese, traditionally engage in dry-field farming. These factors resulted in the Sundanese having a less rigid social hierarchy and more independent social manners. In the 19th century, Dutch colonial exploitation opened much of the interior for coffee, tea, and quinine production, and the highland society took on a frontier aspect, further strengthening the individualistic Sundanese mindset.


title: Sundanese people

text: There is a widespread belief among Indonesian ethnicities that the Sundanese are famous for their beauty. In his report "Summa Oriental" on the early 16th century Sunda Kingdom, Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires mentioned: "The (Sundanese) women are beautiful, and those of the nobles chaste, which is not the case with those of the lower classes". Sundanese women are, as the belief goes, one of the most beautiful in the country due to the climate (they have a lighter complexion than other Indonesians) and a diet featuring raw vegetables (they are said to possess especially soft skin). Bandungite ladies, popularly known as "Mojang Priangan" are reputedly pretty, fashion smart and forward-looking. Probably because of this, many Sundanese people today pursue careers in the entertainment industry.


title: Sundanese people

text: The Sundanese language is spoken by approximately 36 million people in 2010 and is the second most widely spoken regional language in Indonesia. The 2000 Indonesia Census put this figure at 30.9 million. This language is spoken in the southern part of the Banten province, and most of West Java and eastwards as far as the Pamali River in Brebes, Central Java.


title: Sundanese people

text: Sundanese is also closely related to Malay and Minang as it is to Javanese, as seen by the Sundanese utilising different language levels denoting rank and respect – a concept borrowed from the Javanese. It shares similar vocabularies with Javanese and Malay. There are several dialects of Sundanese, from the Sunda–Banten dialect to the Sunda–Cirebonan dialect in the eastern part of West Java until the western part of Central Java Province. Some of the most distinct dialects are from Banten, Bogor, Priangan, and Cirebon. In Central Java, Sundanese is spoken in some of the Cilacap region and some of the Brebes region. It is known that the most refined Sundanese dialect — which is considered as its original form – are those spoken in Ciamis, Tasikmalaya, Garut, Bandung, Sumedang, Sukabumi, and especially Cianjur (The dialect spoken by people living in Cianjur is considered as the most refined Sundanese). The dialect spoken on the north coast, Banten and Cirebon are considered less refined, and the language spoken by Baduy people is considered the archaic type of Sundanese language, before the adoption of the concept of language stratification to denote rank and respect as demonstrated (and influenced) by Javanese.


title: Sundanese people

text: Today, the Sundanese language is primarily written in Latin script. However, there is an effort to revive the Sundanese script, which was used between the 14th and 18th centuries. For example, street names in Bandung and several cities in West Java are now written in both Latin and Sundanese scripts.


title: Sundanese people

text: The initial religious systems of the Sundanese were animism and dynamism with reverence to ancestral ("karuhun") and natural spirits identified as "hyang", yet bears some traits of pantheism. The best indications are found in the oldest epic poems ("wawacan") and among the remote Baduy tribe. This religion is called "Sunda Wiwitan" ("early Sundanese"). The rice agriculture had shaped the culture, beliefs and ritual system of traditional Sundanese people, among other the reverence to Nyai Pohaci Sanghyang Asri as the goddess of rice and fertility. The land of Sundanese people in western Java is among the earliest places in the Indonesian archipelago that were exposed to Indian Hindu-Buddhist influences. Tarumanagara followed by Sunda Kingdom adopted Hinduism as early as the 4th century. The Batujaya stupa complex in Karawang shows Buddhist influences in West Java, while Cangkuang Shivaic temple near Garut shows Hindu influence. The 16th-century sacred text Sanghyang siksakanda ng karesian contains the religious and moral rules, guidance, prescriptions and lessons for ancient Sundanese people.


title: Sundanese people

text: Around the 15th to 16th centuries, Islam began to spread among the Sundanese people by Indian Muslim traders, and its adoption accelerated after the fall of the Hindu-animist Sunda Kingdom and the establishment of the Islamic Sultanates of Banten and Cirebon in coastal West Java. Numerous ulama (locally known as "kyai") penetrated villages in the mountainous regions of Parahyangan and established mosques and schools (pesantren) and spread the Islamic faith amongst the Sundanese people. Small traditional Sundanese communities retained their indigenous social and belief systems, adopting self-imposed isolation, and refused foreign influences, proselytism and modernisation altogether, such as those of the Baduy (Kanekes) people of inland Lebak Regency. Some Sundanese villages such as those in Cigugur Kuningan retained their Sunda Wiwitan beliefs, while some villages such as Kampung Naga in Tasikmalaya, and Sindang Barang Pasir Eurih in Bogor, although identifying themselves as Muslim, still uphold pre-Islamic traditions and taboos and venerated the "karuhun" (ancestral spirits). Today, most Sundanese are Sunni Muslims.


title: Sundanese people

text: After western Java fell under the control of Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the early 18th century, and later under the Dutch East Indies, Christian evangelism towards the Sundanese people was started by missionaries of Genootschap voor In- en Uitwendige Zending te Batavia (GIUZ). This organisation was founded by Mr F. L. Anthing and Pastor E. W. King in 1851. However, it was Nederlandsche Zendelings Vereeniging (NZV) that sent their missionaries to convert the Sundanese peoples. They started the mission in Batavia, later expanding into several towns in West Java such as Bandung, Cianjur, Cirebon, Bogor and Sukabumi. They built schools, churches and hospitals for native people in West Java. Compared to the large Sundanese Muslim population, the numbers of Christian Sundanese are scarce. Today, Christians in West Java are mostly Chinese Indonesians residing in West Java, with only small numbers of native Sundanese Christians.


title: Sundanese people

text: In contemporary Sundanese social and religious life, there is a growing shift towards Islamism, especially amongst urban Sundanese. Compared to the 1960s, many Sundanese Muslim women today have decided to wear hijab. The same phenomenon was also found earlier in the Malay community in Sumatra and Malaysia. Modern history saw the rise of political Islam through the birth of Darul Islam Indonesia in Tasikmalaya, West Java, back in 1949, although this movement was later cracked down by the Indonesian Republic. In modern contemporary political landscapes, the Sundanese realm in West Java and Banten also provides widespread support for Islamic parties such as the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the United Development Party (PPP). There are numbers of Sundanese ulama and Islamic preachers who have been successful in gaining national popularity, such as Kyai Abdullah Gymnastiar and Mamah Dedeh who have become TV personalities through their "dakwah" show. There is an increasing number of Sundanese people who consider the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) as something that enjoys social prestige. On the other hand, there is also a movement led by the minority Sundanese conservative traditionalist "adat", the "Sunda Wiwitan" community, who are struggling to achieve wider acceptance and recognition of their faith and way of life.


title: Sundanese people

text: Sundanese culture is similar to that of Javanese culture. However, it differs by a much less rigid system of social hierarchy. The Sundanese, in their mentality and behaviour, their greater egalitarianism and antipathy to yawning class distinctions, and their community-based material culture, differ from the feudal hierarchy apparent among the people of Javanese principalities. Central Javanese court culture nurtured in an atmosphere conducive to elite, stylised, impeccably-polished forms of art and literature. In a pure sense, Sundanese culture bore few traces of these traditions.


title: Sundanese people

text: Culturally, the Sundanese people adopt a bilateral kinship system, with male and female descent of equal importance. In Sundanese families, the important rituals revolved around life cycles, from birth to death, adopting many of the previous Animist and Hindu-Buddhist, as well as Islamic traditions. For example, during the seventh month of pregnancy, there is a prenatal ritual called "Nujuh Bulanan" (identical to Naloni Mitoni in Javanese tradition) which traces its origins to Hindu ritual. Shortly after the birth of a baby, a ritual called "Akekahan" (from Arabic word: Aqiqah) is performed; an Islamic tradition in which the parents slaughter a goat for a baby girl or two goats for a baby boy, the meat later being cooked and distributed to relatives and neighbours. The circumcision ceremony is performed on pre-pubescent boys and celebrated with Sisingaan (lion) dance.


title: Sundanese people

text: The wedding ceremony is the highlight of Sundanese family celebration involving complex rituals from "naroskeun" and "neundeun omong" (marriage proposal and agreement conducted by parents and family elders), "siraman" (bridal shower), "seserahan" (presenting wedding gifts for the bride), "akad nikah" (wedding vows), "saweran" (throwing coins, mixed with flower petals and sometimes also candies, for the unmarried guests to collect and believed to bring better luck in romance), "huap lingkung" (bride and groom feed each other by the hand, with arms entwined to symbolize love and affection), "bakakak hayam" (bride and groom ripping a grilled chicken through holding each of its legs; a traditional way to determine which one will dominate the family which is the one that gets the larger or head part), and the wedding feast inviting whole family and business relatives, neighbours, and friends as guests. Death in a Sundanese family is usually performed through a series of rituals in accordance with traditional Islam, such as the "pengajian" (reciting Al Quran) including providing "berkat" (rice box with side dishes) for guests. The Quran recitation is performed daily, from the day of death through the seventh day following; later performed again on the 40th day, a year, and the 1,000th day after the passing. This tradition today, however, is not always closely and faithfully followed since growing numbers of Sundanese are adopting a less traditional Islam which does not maintain many of the older traditions.