PROGRESSIVE WOMEN’S ALLIANCE
OF WEST MICHIGAN

The light of America's promise will always burn bright

as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.

 

- Kamala Harris

November 6, 2024

 

Dear PWA Supporters, Friends, and Endorsed Candidates,

 

Elections can be overwhelming, sometimes paralyzing. For the rest of this election week, we hold space for grief at the unfathomable inability of our state and our nation to elect a candidate who was beyond qualified to serve as our nation’s president. Our grief is compounded by difficult memories – of similar feelings after the 2016 election; of the disastrous and destructive policies that election spawned for the next four years; and perhaps of the times in our own lives when our qualifications for a role or a position were not enough to avoid being passed over in favor of an unqualified white man with nothing but bluster.

 

While we mourn the loss of Vice President Kamala Harris’s joyful bid for the White House, we also take comfort in the victory of another highly qualified PWA endorsee – Elissa Slotkin – in her race for the U.S. Senate, and the victories of our endorsees Hillary Scholten and Kristen McDonald Rivet for the U.S. House of Representatives. We congratulate Kyra Harris Bolden and Kimberly Thomas for the Michigan Supreme Court. Congratulations also go to Erin Byrnes, Reggie Miller, Julie Rogers, Phil Skaggs, Stephen Wooden, Kristian Grant, John Fitzgerald, and Carol Glanville for the Michigan House of Representatives. We congratulate PWA endorsees Michelle McCloud, Melissa LaGrand, Steve Faber, and Kris Pachla for their election to the Kent County Commission; Milinda Ysasi and Marshall Kilgore for their election to the Grand Rapids City Commission; Amber Kilpatrick, Eleanor Moreno, and Arick Davis for their election to the GRPS Board; and Andrea Jacobson for her election to the Rockford Public Schools Board. Their hard-won victories are a bright light, and we look forward to their leadership in the months ahead.

 

PWA is grateful to those endorsees who answered the call to serve their communities by running for elected office but were not elected. You prepared the way for future victories. And thank you to all PWA supporters, friends, and volunteers who generously contributed time, talent, and money in supporting candidates who are committed to preserving a democracy in which all voices are heard and all can flourish.

 

History teaches us that our nation’s most significant electoral and policy successes do not come quickly or easily. They are preceded by decades, if not centuries, of toil, setbacks, danger, and even death. We recall that President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law after more than 200 years of protesting, organizing, and setbacks. Women secured the right to vote in 1920 only by enduring 100 years of public ridicule, jailings, and beatings.

 

In these cases, as in many others, many of those who contributed to these efforts never saw the results of their work. Some perished in the struggle. And so many persisted.

 

Today we grieve while taking solace in our wins. Tomorrow we get back to work.

 

The PWA Board of Directors