Who Founded the Million Woman March?

Overview

The Million Woman March, held on October 25, 1997, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was a historic mass gathering of predominantly Black women. While the event drew national attention and an estimated half a million to over a million participants, its origins lie in the vision and determination of two local grassroots activists: Phile Chionesu and Asia Coney. Unlike the 1995 Million Man March, which was convened by the Nation of Islam and its leader Louis Farrakhan, the Million Woman March was conceived and executed outside the framework of established civil rights organizations or charismatic male leadership. Chionesu and Coney, working with a small circle of community women, built the mobilization from the ground up, emphasizing self-determination, economic empowerment, and the overlooked struggles of Black women. The question of who founded the march is thus both straightforward—Chionesu and Coney are the undisputed originators—and complex, as the decentralized structure later led to disputes over credit, representation, and the very meaning of the event.

Historical Background

The mid-1990s were a period of heightened visibility for Black mass mobilization. The 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C., had demonstrated the power of a national call to Black men to atone, unite, and reclaim their communities. However, many Black women activists noted that the Million Man March, while symbolically important, centered male leadership and asked women to stay home and support the men. This gendered framing, along with the Nation of Islam’s controversial role, prompted discussions about a parallel event that would center Black women’s voices and agendas.

Simultaneously, Black women were grappling with intersecting crises: welfare reform, mass incarceration, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, and the erasure of their contributions to social movements. The concept of Black feminism—which insisted on analyzing race, class, and gender together—had been gaining ground since the 1970s, but mainstream civil rights discourse often marginalized women’s specific concerns. The Million Woman March emerged from this context, not as a reaction to the Million Man March alone, but as an assertion of Black women’s autonomous political power.

Why It Was Organized

The march was organized to address the systemic neglect of Black women’s issues and to forge a new, independent movement. According to the founders, the primary goals were:

• To bring together Black women from all walks of life to share experiences and build solidarity.
• To highlight the economic, educational, and health disparities affecting Black women and their families.
• To demand justice for political prisoners, particularly those the organizers believed were wrongly convicted or harshly sentenced.
• To promote self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and community-based solutions rather than reliance on government programs.
• To create a space where Black women could define their own agenda without being filtered through male-dominated organizations or white feminist frameworks.

Chionesu often stated that the march was about “the least of these”—the poor, the incarcerated, the single mothers, and the voiceless. The organizers wanted to move beyond symbolic unity and toward concrete action plans that would continue long after the march ended.

How Organizing Began

The idea for the march originated in 1996 when Phile Chionesu, a Philadelphia-based entrepreneur and community activist, began discussing the need for a mass gathering of Black women with her friend Asia Coney, a housing advocate. Chionesu had been involved in local efforts to support political prisoners and had grown frustrated with the lack of attention to women’s issues within those circles. She envisioned a march that would be organized by “everyday” Black women, not celebrities or established leaders.

Chionesu and Coney started by holding small meetings in their homes, spreading the word through flyers, phone calls, and word of mouth. They deliberately avoided seeking endorsement or funding from major civil rights organizations, fearing that such ties would compromise the march’s grassroots character. Instead, they relied on a network of women’s groups, church auxiliaries, and community activists across the country. The organizing was often chaotic and underfunded, but it generated a groundswell of enthusiasm, particularly among working-class and poor Black women who felt unseen by mainstream feminism and the civil rights establishment.

As the date approached, the founders faced mounting pressure to include nationally known figures. They eventually formed a National Planning Committee that included some established leaders, but tensions over control and messaging persisted. The decentralized model meant that many local organizers took initiative independently, sometimes leading to confusion about who was officially in charge.

What Happened During the Event

On October 25, 1997, despite early morning rain, a massive crowd assembled along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, stretching from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to City Hall. The program featured speeches, musical performances, and testimonials from women across the country. Unlike the tightly scripted Million Man March, the Million Woman March had a more organic, sometimes disorganized, feel. Speakers included grassroots activists, formerly incarcerated women, health professionals, and youth leaders.

Key moments included a powerful address by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist, who was a controversial figure due to allegations of human rights abuses but was embraced by the organizers as a symbol of resilience. Other notable speakers were Congresswoman Maxine Waters, sister of Malcolm X, Ella Collins, and Dr. Dorothy Height, though Height’s presence was a point of contention because she had not been part of the initial planning. The march also featured a “Sisters in the Struggle” tribute to incarcerated women and a call for the release of political prisoners like Assata Shakur.

The day concluded with a collective pledge to continue the work in local communities. No official organizational structure emerged immediately, but many attendees left inspired to form local chapters and action groups.

Key People

The following table lists the central figures associated with the founding and execution of the Million Woman March, along with their roles and affiliations at the time.

Platform and Issues

The march’s platform was articulated through speeches, workshops, and a widely circulated “Call to Action.” The core issues included:

• Economic Empowerment: Support for Black women-owned businesses, job training, and financial literacy.
• Education: Demands for equitable school funding, Afrocentric curricula, and increased access to higher education.
• Health and Wellness: Addressing breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, mental health, and reproductive justice in Black communities.
• Criminal Justice Reform: Freeing political prisoners, ending mandatory minimum sentences, and exposing prison-industrial complex abuses.
• Family and Community: Strengthening Black families, combating domestic violence, and supporting single mothers.
• Political Representation: Encouraging Black women to run for office and hold leadership positions in all sectors.
• Self-Determination: Rejecting external control over Black women’s bodies, narratives, and movements.

Attendance Estimates

One of the most debated aspects of the Million Woman March is the number of participants. No official count was conducted, and estimates varied widely depending on the source and methodology. The table below compares the most commonly cited figures.

Scholars generally agree that the crowd was at least 500,000, making it one of the largest gatherings of Black women in U.S. history, but the exact number remains contested.

Contemporary Media Coverage

Mainstream media coverage of the march was mixed. Major outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN reported on the event, often focusing on the attendance controversy and the organizational tensions. Some reports highlighted the absence of prominent Black women leaders like Oprah Winfrey or Coretta Scott King, framing the march as less legitimate than the Million Man March. The Philadelphia Inquirer provided extensive local coverage, noting the logistical challenges and the grassroots energy.

Black-oriented media, including Essence magazine and Black newspapers, offered more sympathetic portrayals, emphasizing the historic nature of the gathering and the voices of ordinary women. However, even within the Black press, there was debate about the founders’ confrontational stance toward established organizations. The lack of a centralized media strategy meant that the march’s message was sometimes overshadowed by stories of internal conflict.

Controversies / Disputed Claims

The Million Woman March was marked by several controversies that continue to shape its historical memory:

• Founding and Leadership: While Chionesu and Coney are the acknowledged founders, some later participants claimed that the march was a collective effort with no single leader. Others argued that the founders’ refusal to share power with established figures led to missed opportunities for broader impact.
• Financial Accountability: Questions were raised about the handling of donations and vendor fees. The decentralized structure made financial transparency difficult, and some local organizers alleged mismanagement.
• Inclusion of Winnie Mandela: Mandela’s presence was controversial due to her alleged involvement in human rights abuses in South Africa. Some women’s groups protested her invitation, but the founders stood by her as a symbol of Black women’s resistance.
• Relationship with the Million Man March: Organizers insisted the march was not a response to the Million Man March, but many participants and observers saw it as a direct counterpoint. This framing sometimes reduced the event to a gender rivalry rather than an independent movement.
• Post-March Organization: The founders’ vision of a sustained movement struggled to materialize. Competing factions emerged, and no single national organization successfully carried forward the march’s name, leading to disputes over the legacy.

Historical Impact

The Million Woman March had a profound, if understudied, impact on Black women’s activism. It demonstrated that a grassroots, women-led mobilization could draw massive numbers without the backing of major institutions. The march amplified issues like political imprisonment and economic self-sufficiency that were often sidelined in mainstream discourse. It also inspired a wave of local organizing, with many attendees returning home to start community programs, study circles, and advocacy groups.

In the broader context of 1990s social movements, the march represented a shift away from the charismatic leadership model of the civil rights era toward more decentralized, network-based activism. It prefigured later movements like Black Lives Matter, which also emphasized leaderless structures and intersectional analysis. However, the internal conflicts and lack of sustained infrastructure limited its long-term institutional legacy.

Legacy

The legacy of the Million Woman March is multifaceted. For many participants, it remains a transformative experience of solidarity and empowerment. The march is commemorated in documentaries, oral history projects, and annual local events. In 2017, a 20th-anniversary gathering was held in Philadelphia, though it was smaller and did not capture the same national attention.

The march also left a complicated institutional legacy. The name “Million Woman March” was later used by other groups without connection to the original founders, leading to legal disputes. The founders themselves have maintained a relatively low profile, with Chionesu continuing her activism around political prisoners and economic empowerment. The event is increasingly studied by historians as a critical moment in Black feminist organizing, even as debates about its meaning continue.

What Historians Say

Historians of Black women’s activism have offered nuanced assessments of the Million Woman March. Scholars such as Farah Jasmine Griffin and Beverly Guy-Sheftall have situated the march within the longer tradition of Black women’s autonomous organizing, from the club movement of the 19th century to the Combahee River Collective. They note that the march’s emphasis on “everyday” women and its suspicion of established leadership reflected a broader critique of respectability politics.

Other historians, like Deborah Gray White, have examined the march as a case study in the challenges of grassroots mobilization without institutional support. They argue that while the march succeeded in creating a powerful moment of unity, its failure to build a lasting organization illustrates the difficulties of sustaining movements without formal structures. The attendance controversy is often cited as an example of how crowd estimates become politicized in Black mass gatherings.

Recent scholarship has also focused on the march’s role in popularizing the concept of “political prisoners” and its connection to the broader prison abolition movement. The march is increasingly seen as a bridge between the Black Power era and contemporary activism.

Revision History

This article has been revised to reflect new scholarship and to correct inaccuracies in earlier versions. Major revisions include:

• October 2023: Initial publication with comprehensive sourcing.
• March 2024: Updated attendance estimates table to include academic consensus range; added clarification on the role of Dr. Dorothy Height based on newly available oral histories.
• September 2024: Expanded “Controversies” section to address financial accountability questions; revised “What Historians Say” to incorporate recent journal articles.
• January 2025: Minor corrections to names and dates; added related terms and FAQ section.