Demonstrators at the Women’s Strike for Equality, New York City,

August 26, 1970

On August 26, 1970, more than thirty thousand women marched down Fifth Avenue demanding equal rights, better child care assistance, and the right to medical abortion. Sponsored by the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Women’s Strike for Equality marked women’s liberation as a national movement. By this point, photographic and televised coverage of demonstrations had become standard, if not rote. Covering the march for <em>Life</em> magazine, McDarrah captured—in the protestors’ hand gestures—the legacy of visual strategies passed from one protest movement to the next: the V sign for peace from the anti-war movement and the raised fist associated with Black Power. In the interlinked arms of the protestors, McDarrah also called attention to the movement’s racial diversity.