The 2020 Adirondack Women’s March has been set for Saturday, January 18th in Lewis, NY. Organizers Sandra Weber and David Hodges are planning a combination of a march, rally and community celebration for this years event.

The aim of the march is to show solidarity with women around the world, and protect the civil rights, safety, and health of all people.

Inez Milholland paraded in the 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington, DC. Three years later, she died while campaigning for Votes for Women and was buried in Lewis Cemetery, a few miles from the family’s summer estate, Meadowmount. As martyr and icon of the suffrage movement, Inez is remembered for carrying the banner “Forward out of error, Leave behind the night, Forward through the darkness, Forward into light.”

There will be two highlights of this year’s program, a challenge coin will be unveiled near Inez’s grave and a celebration of the renaming of Mount Discovery as Mount Inez. After her death in 1916, the people of Lewis and Elizabethtown named the mountain for her, calling her ‘their most illustrious citizen.’ The name change was recently made official. Mount Inez can be seen from her graveside.

The event will begin at 11 am with a march from the gate of Lewis Cemetery up the hill to the grave site of Inez Milholland. The program will include a welcome address, poems, songs, and grave ceremony. Attendees are encouraged to bring signs, flags, and/or flowers to lay on Inez’s grave.

After the program, the march will commence down the hill to the Inez Milholland roadside marker (at the corner of Route 9 and Fox Run Road), then up Route 9 to Lewis Veterans’ Park. Participants can then visit the Lewis Town Hall to view the Milholland history exhibit and enjoy light refreshments.

The 2020 Adirondack Women’s March event is free and non-partisan. For more information, visit the Adirondack Women’s March website or email weber@sandraweber.com

Illustration: Program Cover from 1913 Washington DC March.