New Orleans Women’s March Canceled

The Women’s March in New Orleans has been canceled, according to organizers of the march.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) Baton Rouge chapter announced on their Facebook page that they were canceling the march “due to several issues.”

“Many of the sister marches have asked the leaders of Women’s March, Inc. to resign but as of today, they have yet to do so,” the post read. “The controversy is dampening efforts of sister marches to fundraise, enlist involvement, find sponsors and attendee numbers have drastically declined this year. New Orleans is no exception.”

The statement added that they would be conducting community service efforts instead on the day of the Women’s March; they will also be providing refunds for donations and T-shirts.

The New Orleans Women’s March is the latest to be canceled, as the Chicago Women’s March organizers have said that their march was canceled as a result of costs; the Women’s March in Humboldt County in Northern California, is being canceled because “the participants have been overwhelmingly white.”

Women’s March leaders Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez have faced criticism over their ties to anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan; that criticism has intensified after a recent Tablet report stated that Perez and Mallory pushed an anti-Semitic talking point from the Nation of Islam and berated an early leader of the movement due to her Jewish faith.

Women’s March founder Teresa Shook called on the Women’s March leaders to step down for allowing “anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform by their refusal to separate themselves from groups that espouse these racist, hateful beliefs.”