Pastor Cori Bush has fought off two violent attempted rapes in her life – they both started off as dates. Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green was molested at age 3, but no one believed her after she came forward, Green said.
“We are not asking you to feel sorry; we are asking you to be compelled to move,” said Bush, a Ferguson frontliner who recently ran for U.S. Congress. “So then people won’t say ‘Don’t ruin someone’s life for something that happened so long ago.’ But what about the victim’s life? We remember it at 40. We remember it at 60.”
This weekend a group of about 100 people – from elected officials to Ferguson frontliners – started organizing the #OccupyThe100 movement to urge U.S. senators and the country overall to oppose the U.S. Senate’s confirmation of Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
They launched the campaign in front of Republican U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt’s office in Clayton at 11:30 on Tuesday, October 2. They are urging Blunt to vote against confirming Kavanaugh. Blunt has not yet responded to the St. Louis American’s request for comment regarding the press conference.
Bush said they wanted to use St. Louis’ influence and experience in organizing to push the vote to a “no.”
“People do recognize St. Louis as a place where activists are, a place where movements happen, where things are shaken up,” Bush said. “The fact that we are going to give them the tools to do this, I think that will give people some comfort because they’ve seen us in actions.”
Groups in New York, Dallas, Houston and other places were watching St. Louis’ launch today to see how it went, Bush said.
“It went amazing,” Bush said. “Now we are getting ready to set up the tents. We’re staying.”
For those who can’t physically sit-in or camp out, the group is encouraging people to occupy Sen. Blunt’s phone lines, email inbox, Twitter feed, and Facebook page.
While the press conference was going on outside, two women dropped a Stop Kavanaugh #OccupyThe100 banner inside the building from a second-story balcony. They were told to leave after several minutes, and they did so immediately.
State Rep. Stacey Newman (D-Clayton) said that Kavanaugh has shown that he will not be partisan after the way he slammed Democrats during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week. There, Stanford professor Christine Blasey Ford told the committee that Kavanaugh allegedly sexually assaulted her when they were both high school students more than 35 years ago.
Kavanaugh has failed to release all his documents regarding his now multiple allegations of sexual assault, Newman said.
“We know that if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, there will be discrimination and we know exactly who will suffer,” Newman said.
State Sen. Jamilah Nasheed told the 30 people standing behind her, “Thanks to every one of you for fighting for women’s rights.”
At that moment, a middle-aged, light-haired woman driving a convertible yelled expletives at the crowd, as she drove past on Hanley Road.
Victims of sexual abuse experience paranoia, post-traumatic stress disorder, flashbacks, anxiety and other symptoms that can continue throughout their lives, Bush said.
“We didn’t ask for any of that, but that’s what we walk with,” Bush said. “And people want us to push it away and get over it. [People say] It was just some type of sex you didn’t like. We say, ‘no.’ It was violence.”
Green said that women are told at a young age that even if they do tell, nothing will change.
“As an adult, I found myself in an abusive relationship and it took me years to tell anyone,” Green said. “Because I had experienced that we don’t trust the experiences of sexual assault victims when they come forward. That’s why the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh is so scary to many of survivors of sexual assault. His confirmation tells us that our stories don’t matter.”
Bush cited a statistic that six out of 1,000 rapists go to jail, leaving 994 to walk the streets.
“If a white, married blonde middle-aged woman from the suburbs with a Ph.D. gets treated and dismissed this way, what do black women get?” Bush said. “What do women of color get? What do children get? What do we have to look forward to?”
Bush urged people to get involved this week, at whatever level they can.
“We have to make sure that we do this because it not only affects us, it affects our children’s children’s children,” Bush said. “This is a lifetime appointment. We need to make sure our voices are heard.”
