On Saturday 11th June MVM activists all over the country came together to ‘Get Moving for PR.’ It was such a fantastic day, with events in Lancashire, Yorkshire, London, Cambridge, Lewes, South Hampshire, Salisbury, Totnes, Oxford, Sheffield, Manchester, Taunton, Kent, Bristol and Dorset.
The idea originally came from our activists up in Lancashire, who wanted to recreate part of the iconic Great Pilgrimage of 1913. This was made by peaceful campaigners for women’s suffrage, who walked from all over the country for a rally in London. While not all of them could complete the whole route everyone was encouraged to take part where they could, and women of all classes and backgrounds were present. 50,000 marchers converged in Hyde Park for a mass rally on 26th July of that year.
Whilst our initial aims were understandably a little more modest, we were blown away by the effort and enthusiasm that everyone put in, evidence of which can be seen in the selection of pictures below (if you want to see more photos, you can do so here). Some groups chose to recreate a part of the original route, while others held their own marches or events in their town centres, with guests and speakers for maximum engagement with the public. Cambridge went for a particularly creative interpretation of the idea of ‘getting moving’ and went Punting for PR, while in London we gathered at the iconic Speaker’s Corner, where the suffragists themselves would have been over 100 years ago.
It is MVM North Lancashire that deserve the most credit though, as they walked all the way from Grasmere to Preston over the course of six days! Along the way they had many interesting and productive conversations with other members of the public, held a street stall on each day, and were interviewed by ITV Borders and BBC Northwest.
A huge well done to everyone involved. We're excited to build on the success of this Action Day and to organise even bigger and more creative actions as the movement for equal votes continues to grow.