Texas Democratic Women of Gregg County

July 2008 meeting — Thursday, July 10, noon — please note change of date!: Speaker: Tammy Cromer-Campbell — Environmental Justice in the USA
With Fruit of the Orchard: Environmental Justice in East Texas successfully published as a book and knowing that environmental justice issues are not limited to East Texas, Cromer-Campbell decided to reveal other communities across our great nation struggling with pollution problems. She starts with where she left off in Winona, Texas and then travels to Seattle, Washington, Houston’s ship channel, and De Berry, Texas to tell their stories. It is her hope that by revealing these problems a dialogue will begin and real change will occur.
Location: Longview Community Center, 200 N Second, Longview

Past programs: We’ve had some great speakers over the past couple of years. Want to see what you missed?

Women in politics: How does the U.S. stack up?

Not very well, according to Parade magazine’s July 3, 2005 edition: “When nations were ranked for women’s participation in national legislatures and governments, the U.S. was 61st. . . . In Iraq, women are pushing for 40% of the assembly seats, while they’re still at just 14% in the U.S. House and Senate.”

The Parade website includes some great links to organizations working for women and democracy-building around the world. See http://archive.parade.com/2005/0703/0703_changing_nations.html, at the bottom of the page.

The nonpartisan group The White House Project promotes women’s leadership in politics and beyond. Parade says The White House project “is training 300 women to become more active in U.S. politics this summer. Marie Wilson, the projects’s president, says more women need to be encouraged to run for office. She stresses the importance of women’s involvement in state and local offices, which serve as a pipeline to national positions.”