“Today I Stand”
Women’s March on Washington in Kansas City
By David McDaniel
Senior Pastor, Holmeswood Baptist Church
On Saturday, January 21, 2017, I stood in Washington Square Park alongside my sisters and brothers and participated in the Women’s March on Washington in Kansas City. While I stood, I reflected on why I was there. I, a Caucasian, male, Baptist pastor, stood to lift my voice and declare with others that we as a people are not going back in time. This is why I stood. This is why I still stand.
Today, I stand.
Today, I stand in solidarity.
Today, I stand in solidarity with my:
- Wife who enters a patient’s room and it is assumed she is the nurse instead of the physician.
- Mom who never received equal pay for her work as a clergywoman as compared to her male clergy colleagues.
- Possible future daughter who will enter into a world in which her country’s leader boasts of his freedom to commit sexual assault.
- Sisters who are pressured to marry by a certain age and then place their careers on hold in order to raise a family.
- Grandmother, who taught my father, who taught me that all household chores are gender neutral.
- Lesbian and Transgender sisters who are bullied out of their rental homes.
- Islamic practicers who are fearful to openly live into their faith.
- Immigrant dwellers who seek a home in the land that proclaims, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
- Fellow mourners who justly and painstakingly terminated a pregnancy but are ridiculed for their empathetic decision.
Today I stand in solidarity with all who have been told they are less-than, unworthy, despicable.
Today I stand in solidarity with all who have been sexually, verbally, and physically abused.
Today I stand because I refuse to sit.
I refuse to passively breathe life into inequality.
Today I stand for all my sisters in this diverse family.
Today I stand in solidarity.
Today I stand.
David McDaniel, (far left) is Senior Pastor of Holmeswood Baptist Church, 9700 Holmes Rd. Here he stands next to his wife and family members.