Resist and Persist. That’s the title of this year’s National Organization for Women state conference held at MCC on Saturday.
The annual event brings together women leaders and activists for a day of organizing and learning.
President of New York NOW Sonia Ossorio recognized the achievements and actions taken by women in the last year, specifically since the 2016 election.
"Since then when we gathered to mourn and pick ourselves up and we promised each other to go forward, we haven’t stopped."
Panels included refugee rights and the rise of white nationalism and misogyny.
Angela King was on that last panel, co-founder of the group Life After Hate. She said the rise in these groups could be traced back to the internet giving people a place to organize. But the answer might not be in tearing these sites down right away.
“Now that domains have been pulled, now that these individuals do not have their public networks, they are on the dark net. Which makes it even harder to track them and makes it unsafe for those of us who do because if we do, they know we're tracking them."
Elected officials had a panel discussing women’s rights during the Trump administration; including Mayor Lovely Warren, Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter.