Two other founding board members also step down.
By NewsOne
The Women’s March is in a transition period now that three of the founding board members are stepping down.
The process was already underway in July, but now the collective has released official information. According to The Washington Post, co-Chairs Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour cut ties with the group on July 15. Their departures come amidst accusations of anti-Semitism, infighting and financial mismanagement.
A diverse group of 16 new board members include a Jewish woman, a former legislator, a transgender woman, two religious leaders and a member of the Oglala tribe of the Lakota nation. They will try to maintain an organization marred by fractured relationships with the Jewish community and local activist groups.
Mallory and Bland, who served as co-presidents of the organization, will be formerly replaced once the new board gathers for their first meeting this month. Once they convene, the incoming board will elect new leadership. Co-Chair Carmen Perez, who organizes around criminal justice reform and child decarceration, will stay on the new board.
Calls for the co-chairs to resign reached a high point ahead of the 2019 Women’s March on Washington, which brought in thousands of women from around the country in January. A lot of the controversy came from an incident when Mallory went to a Nation of Islam event where Louis Farrakhan made inflammatory statements about Jewish people. The Women’s March tried to assuage the outrage by reaching out to the Jewish community and denouncing anti-Semitism. However, the leaders refused to denounce Farrakhan, who is known to make anti-Semitic remarks.
The three women resigning from the Women’s March said that they would transition “onto other projects focused on advocacy within their respective organizations.”
Sarsour released her own statement calling the new Women’s March board “AMAZING,” and she said she will continue to get folks to the polls for the 2020 presidential election.
“I am grateful to the women who stepped up to shepherd the Women’s March,” she wrote. “This is what women supporting women looks like.”
Bland also said that the transition process has been planned over time by outgoing leadership. The new board members were selected by a nominating committee. Several of them acknowledge that the organization has made “mistakes and missteps” however they’re committed to the cause. One of their top priorities for the near future is getting Donald Trump out of office.
“The priority for me is really dealing with the very serious consequences of what the president and his administration is doing and causing,” said new board member Lucy Flores. “Once we’re in the general [election], the number one priority will be to defeat Trump, and we will do whatever it takes.”
You can check out the full list of the new board members here.
This article originally appeared on NewsOne.