The Latina-Led Women’s March That Confronted Fascism in 1937: A Lost Chapter of U.S. History

On May 6, 1937, 5,000 women, most of them working-class Latinas, shut down the streets of Tampa’s Ybor City in one of the largest political demonstrations organized by Latinas in U.S. history, now known as the 1937 Antifascist Women’s March or Ybor City Women’s March. These women, mostly dressed in black, walked arm-in-arm in a funeral procession and carried banners in response to growing fascist threats both abroad and at home. 

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A Moment Born of Urgency

The spark for this women’s march was the bombing of Guernica on April 26, 1937, where Hitler’s Condor Legion and Mussolini’s air force leveled a Basque town, killing thousands of civilians. News traveled quickly to Tampa’s Latin immigrant community, which included Cuban, Spanish, and Italian immigrants, many of whom still had family in Spain and deep ties to its politics. 

Within ten days, they organized one of the most powerful anti-fascist demonstrations in the nation. Historian Sarah McNamara, associate professor of history at Texas A&M University, author of “Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South,” and descendant of one of the women who participated at the Ybor City Women’s March, characterizes the march as “the largest collective action of Latinas to protest one single issue” before the modern immigration-rights era. Few other U.S. events prior to World War II mobilized so many people, especially women of color, under a unified antifascist banner. 

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Labor organizer Luisa Moreno, a Guatemalan immigrant and one of the most formidable Latina labor leaders of the 20th century, helped coordinate the demonstration with local coalitions like the Comité Popular de Defensa del Frente Popular Español. Moreno worked to unionize Black and Latino cigar workers and became instrumental in organizing both the Ybor City Women’s March and subsequent labor actions. She would later become the first Latina elected to a high-ranking national position in a U.S. trade union as vice president of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA).

McNamara’s great-aunt, Margot Falcón Blanco, was also involved in the march. She walked alongside her mother, Amelia Blanco Álvarez, and their presence helped personify the local, working-class, and the countless everyday women who made the protest possible. The procession began on 7th Avenue and ended at Tampa City Hall, carrying an unapologetic message: “¡No pasarán!” (They shall not pass), which they borrowed directly from the Spanish Republican battle-cry coined by Dolores Ibárruri (“La Pasionaria”) during the Siege of Madrid. In her July 18, 1936, radio address, Ibárruri closed with “The fascists shall not pass! ¡No pasarán!” and that slogan that quickly became the motto of the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. 

Speaking Truth to Power

The decision for women to lead was both symbolic and tactical. In the Jim Crow South, men of color who spoke out risked immediate, often violent retaliation. Women, while still targets of discrimination, faced less direct retribution, making them the safest public face for an urgent political stand. McNamara stated in a Tampa Bay Times interview, “The Ku Klux Klan was pretty much unchecked. When men spoke out, there were visceral repercussions. Women did not encounter the same kind of retribution.” 

When the marchers reached Tampa City Hall, they presented Mayor Robert E. Lee Chancey with a formal petition. A woman representative read a statement that declared:

“As citizens and residents of a peaceful and democratic nation, we feel morally obliged to give all possible aid to Spanish cities that defend their democratic government against fascist aggression, thus maintaining the standard of peace and democracy in the world.”

Remembering Is Resistance

Despite its size and impact, the Ybor City Women’s March faded from mainstream memory for decades, and it has taken generations to bring the march back into public consciousness. In 2023, with the support of the Carlos H. Cantu Hispanic Education and Opportunity Endowment and the Hillsborough County Historical Advisory Council, McNamara and artist Michelle Sawyer collaborated to create a historic marker and mural to commemorate the march and bring it to the forefront of public consciousness. 

This year, on May 6, 2025, Women’s March organized an Antifascist Women’s March memorial walk. “We honor their courage, solidarity, and radical legacy in the face of global and local oppression. Their fight echoes in today’s struggles for equity, workers’ rights, and justice,” stated the event’s invite.

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The Ybor City Women’s March challenges the idea that Latinas’ political engagement is a recent phenomenon. It reminds us that immigrant women, often written off as “workers” but not “leaders,” have long been on the front lines of defending democracy. It also poses a question we can’t ignore: if history forgot 5,000 women marching against fascism in 1937, what else has it erased?

Remembering Ybor City isn’t just about honoring the past. It’s about reclaiming a lineage of Latina resistance that is as relevant in today’s political climate as it was when the women in black first stepped onto 7th Avenue and declared to the world: They shall not pass.