July 19, 2021 

We, the undersigned women, are raising the alarm that our democracy is in peril.  

We are women of every race, religion, gender and sexual orientation, age, ability, and more, many of us poor and all of us are committed to the work of justice.

Today, we gather in our nation’s capital, united in the conviction that we must and can change the direction of this country. 

We commit ourselves and our bodies so that this democracy may live up to her great promise to secure the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. 

Three weeks before Congress takes its summer recess, we call for an immediate end to the filibuster, the protection and expansion of our voting rights and the raising of hourly wages to at least $15. 

We see that 140 million people are poor or one emergency away from economic ruin, including more than 70 million women. 

We see poor women, especially poor women of color and LGBTQ+ women, carrying undue burdens of low-wage, precarious and unpaid work.

We see women facing the indignities of a broken social welfare system, housing evictions, utility shutoffs, the denial of health care and crushing debt.  

We see women being hit first and worst by the climate crisis and ecological devastation and on the frontlines of detention, deportation, displacement and war. 

Despite these conditions, our voices are stifled and our demands for justice unmet. 

Voting rights are under historic attack and procedural rules like the filibuster are being used to suppress the will of the people. 

Without our full democratic rights, we cannot challenge the injustices to which we bear witness and which threaten to displace democracy with autocracy. 

173 years ago today, on July 19, 1848, participants at the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, signed the Declaration of Sentiments. 

Today, on the anniversary of that historic meeting, we stand together to take up the commitments that have been made by generations of women and freedom fighters before us, for all the generations yet to be. 

Forward Together, Not One Step Back!