San Francisco Lament Walk for Lost Justice for Women

PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Ann Grogan email: anngrogan.romantasy [at] gmail.com text/phone: 415-587-3863

For Immediate Release - San Francisco, CA (November 17, 2025)

Lament Walk for Lost Justice for Women, Sunday Nov. 23, 1:30 pm (Glen Park, San Francisco, CA)

“Same Shit Different Century” the courageous 17th century Suffragists would say – “but keep marching & don’t give up!”

Women and men in San Francisco are not giving up! A unique, ceremonial Lament Walk for Lost Justice for Women will be held at 1:30 pm on Sunday, November 23 commencing at Chenery Street and proceeding along Diamond Street to the BART plaza in the heart of the small village neighborhood, Glen Park. Additional walkers are invited; preregistration required.

The ceremonial Walk is akin to a flash mob that lasts only 45 minutes and then disappears. Participants will be clad in all-black carrying signs that lament the abuse of women and families by the current autocratic US political regime. Each sign states one way justice has been taken from women when it comes to their choices, health, and lives.

The Walk ends in the Glen Park Branch Library where at 2:30 pm a documentary film on folk and protest singer Holly Near will be shown, open gratis to the public.

Organizer Ann Grogan, a 40-year resident of the neighborhood, says that the walker’s purpose is “to encourage those committed to humanistic and just politics and society to step up and speak out in street protests and by urging legislators and courts to GET R.E.A.L.:
 R eproductive rights: fund Planned Parenthood and all reproductive health clinics!
 E pstein: release all the files, not just files from his estate!
 A busers: prosecute them!
 L ife: securely fund SNAP, Medicaid & reproductive rights including abortion!

The Walk is the City’s third Lament Walk that Grogan has organized, and reflects a long history of walking as protest, including Ghandi’s Salt March in 1930 to protest British taxation and colonial rule, Martin Luther King’s “March in Washington D.C. for Jobs and Freedom” and for racial justice in 1963, and the Women’s March in Washington, DC in January of 2017 to support women’s rights.

“Such lament walks are enjoyable for adults of almost any fitness level or ability because they are time-limited, calm, and involve a moderate, easy pace,” says Grogan. Like Grogan, one of the walkers, Sheila Terry who is a retired realtor, is an octogenarian and will be using an assist device. Terry says “I’m walking because I am concerned that my granddaughter will not know what she is losing if we go backwards in our rights. I feel a need to speak up and call attention to the recent loss of women’s autonomy.”

Grogan says “I’m from the college generation in the 60s and 70s which took chances to get on the streets and support the second wave of feminism focused on reproductive rights, equal employment and educational opportunity. We also joined protests against the Vietnam War and for gay and minority rights. In 1972 and despite fear of arrest, I walked with three other law students in the second-ever San Francisco Gay Day Parade” (now known as the Pride Parade).

In early November Grogan and Terry attended the Broadway musical “Suffs” and were inspired to conduct this walk. Grogan says, “I was deeply touched by the courage and commitment of the Suffs who experienced police brutality, jail, and then mounted serious hunger strikes to finally achieve the women’s vote in 1920. I benefited from their courage by being able in the 70s to go to law school and work in public interest law for 16 years before moving on to an entrepreneurial career. I am not going back to “tradition” and will stay on the streets until our vote, our health, our life choices, and our autonomy are secure again! A return to a humanist, democratic government for all is my hope for the future” Grogan said.

Three other U.S. cities since May, 2025 have sponsored Lament Walks (Kentucky, Auburn, CA, and Ft. Worth):
--https://www.facebook.com/groups/50501movement/posts/lexington-kentucky-mayday/1030223652048297/
--https://www.facebook.com/reel/2994798044059134
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