Yesterday, women and men took to the streets of major cities across the country for the 2018 Women's March in a message of solidarity and protest on the one-year anniversary of the various protests held last year following Donald Trump's inauguration. During the march in New York City, Halsey took to the podium in front of a crowd of thousands to give a moving and powerful speech about her personal experiences with sexual abuse throughout her life.
Among the various speakers who spoke at yesterday's march, the singer recited her poem "A Story Like Mine," recounting the unfortunate reality of sexual abuse that so many women around the world face.
The nearly five-minute speech starts off with Halsey first telling the crowd that she had also attended last year's march in Washington D.C. before breaking into her original poem. "It's 2009 and I'm 14 and I'm crying. Not really sure where I am but I'm holding the hand of my best friend Sam. In the waiting room of a Planned Parenthood," is how she begins. Other personal stories she touches on throughout the poem include her past experiences with sexual assault, abusive boyfriends, and performing through a miscarriage. "I've toured everywhere from Japan to Mar-a-Lago. I even went on stage that night in Chicago when I was having a miscarriage. I mean, I pied the piper, I put on a diaper. And sang out my spleen to a room full of teens," she says.
Halsey did not keep the focus entirely on her either. She also pointed out other strong women dealing with these issues in the headlines such as Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, and Aly Raisman, who were all a part of the testimonies at the sentencing of Larry Nassar this past week. She also took a moment to take a much-deserved shot at Trump for his silence on all of these horrific stories and the #MeToo movement.
"It's Olympians and a medical resident and not one fucking word from the man who is President."
She closed out the powerful speech with a message of solidarity for the thousands listening. "But we are not free until all of us are free.
So love your neighbor, please treat her kindly. Ask her story and then shut up and listen. Black, Asian, poor, wealthy, trans, cis, Muslim, Christian."
