March To Equality:
An Online Movement On It’s Way To Making History
By Chris Astrala
Back in fall 2014 Stephan Anspichler of Berlin, Germany began an extraordinary journey in the U.S. by making the first step to develop a never before seen campaign for the LGBT movement. “At this time we only knew where we wanted to end the campaign: at the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in June 2019,” he says. What happened in the almost five years between that very first thought and Stonewall’s 50th, was all very far away for the film and TV producer who grew up in a very small city near Germany’s Black Forrest.
“If anyone would have warned me what could happen in the process of making such a campaign run, I would have never started,” Anspichler says. “In a way it’s like the challenge of making a movie – when you write and develop the story, there is just no way that you wouldn’t want to proceed and see it all happen on the big screen, but while you’re actually making it, you realize how crazy it is to spend 18 hours a day with nothing else than giving this baby life; and when you’re done with it, you forget how painful it was and you continue to be crazy enough to do another one.”
21 months later we know much more about this campaign. March To Equality is the most expansive virtual march in history supporting full LGBT equality. What sounded like a fabulous idea that seemed to be so obvious for someone to come up with, turned out to be a very complex endeavor. “The complexity of this project was given through the fact that it had to keep its integrity while offering a fun activity that anyone anywhere on the globe could follow and participate in,” he says.
Let’s check it out. Visiting the site you are invited to the global community to be part of an important legacy. The only thing a participant has to do is take a selfie of a step (no matter if you’re walking, running up and down a football field, skydiving, or even swimming). Let your imagination run wild while taking your selfie – because eventually you will end up being part of a historic movement.
Next, you simply login to MTE with your Facebook or Google+ profile. In your personal dashboard you’re being asked to “Take Action Now” and upload the selfie you have just produced. Click. Upload Image. Click. Save. Click. Share. Click. #MarchToEquality. Click. Post. Done.
“I have donated 1 step to the March To Equality” is the message that everyone that follows you on social media will receive when scrolling down the newsfeed. The contributor meanwhile has already received an email biofeedback from the campaign, stating the participation in the march at this point of the historic timeline. And by looking at the success of the campaign, many people seem to reproduce that model over and over again. As of this writing, 1,949,074 steps were added to the campaign – an extraordinary success.
“We were calculating that we will do really well if we get 1 million steps in the first year. Just eight months into the campaign we have doubled the expectations,” Anspichler says. No wonder that he decided that the goal of the campaign would be to collect 50 million steps by Stonewall’s 50th. A number that sounds logical gets even better by taking into account that it takes 50 million steps to circumnavigate the globe.
That’s what’s all happening in the background of MTE. On the forefront, this movement was created to boost change in societies around the globe. In 76 countries homosexuality is still illegal, in 5 countries it can result in being sentenced to death. For Anspichler this is where the real passion comes in, because “LGBT Rights are Human Rights – a right we all get when we are born, is still questioned by too many people on this planet, a place that we all should share with respect to each other.”
The support that MTE got so far from organizations and advocates is impressive. The campaign kicked-off in collaboration with the United Nations Free and Equal campaign; just a few months later, MTE was selected as an official supporting organization of The Economist Magazine’s Pride and Prejudice event in Hong Kong, London and New York; and the story continues with international Pride organizations joining initiatives with MTE.
One question remains: People are “donating” steps to the campaign – who is donating money? “We can’t ask people in an equality campaign to donate money if we want to be truly equal to everyone,” Anspichler says. “But obviously this campaign needs support to maintain the highly work sensitive online platform. Our answer to this always was to engage brands in support of the cause. This way brands can create a strong message with true values and help the community they serve.”
To lend your support to this cause please visit www.marchtoequality.org
