Eve Ensler Hosts Evening Featuring Evan Rachel Wood and More

On Tuesday, February 26, Eve Ensler, Tony award wining playwright and founder of V-Day and One Billion Rising, hosts an evening featuring best-selling author Naomi Klein; Westworld actor and domestic violence survivor/advocate Evan Rachel Wood; mother of Korryn Gaines, a young mother shot and killed by Baltimore Police Rhanda Dormeus; nationally recognized speaker Rev. Jacqueline J. Lewis, Ph.D.; musicians, activists, and the renowned Jerriese Johnson Gospel Choir of Middle Church on Tuesday, February 26 at 7 pm at Middle Collegiate Church (112 Second Ave, near E. 7th Street) in New York City. On the eve of Women's History Month, poets, composers and scholars celebrate all women and the intersectional issues they are addressing.

The evening honors the extraordinary women who are rising in unprecedented ways across New York City, the country, and the world. These celebrations may come in the form of a poem, a sermon, a speech, a rant or a prayer. RISING for immigrant, disabled, Palestinian, LGBTQIA+, & Indigenous rights; for those who face caste discrimination; for climate justice; a just and ethical church; the incarcerated; economic justice; a Green New Deal & for the freedom of all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence).

The evening speakers include: Dara Baldwin (advocate for disability rights), Pamela Benitez, Dana Levinson (actor and trans advocate),  Nancy Mansour (Palestinian rights activist), Roslyn Smith (advocate for incarcerated mothers and their children), Thenmozhi Soundararajan (advocate against caste inequality), with musical performances by Ryan Amador, BETTY, Batal New York, Climbing PoeTree, Kashish, and The Archduke.

Tickets $10, limited free tickets available email rsvp(at)onebillionrising.org. Purchase tickets at RageRejoiceRise.Eventbrite.com.

"Women are rising in every corner of the earth to face, head on, the most pressing issues of our time. Through creative resistance and artistic uprisings, they rise with conviction and compassion for inclusion, solidarity, ending the hate, honoring all women and migrants and LGBTQIA plus, the earth, the marginalized, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated. It's not a movement. It's a way of life. And, at the event men will call in men through song, I am so unbelievably proud to be partnering with Jacob Denzel and Charity Croff for their song Dismantle and with Ryan Amador for his song Like A Women to serve our movement and bring forward a world where women are safe and equal and free."  Eve Ensler, Founder of V-Day and One Billion Rising said.

The Rev. Jacqueline J. Lewis, Ph.D., senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church said, "I am curious how God became white and male. It is human to create God in our image. For me, God is a curvy Black woman with dreadlocks and dark Cocoa Brown skin. She laughs from Her belly and is unashamed to cry. Her Spirit causes eruptions of justice and love. We must examine how we look at God because it will change how we look at women, Black skin and ourselves."

The event is a partnership between V-Day, One Billion Rising, and Middle Collegiate Church.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos