Mother’s Day has a reputation as a cheesy commercial holiday complete with flower bouquets, Hallmark cards, Godiva chocolate and Build-A-Bears. But, believe it or not, this holiday was actually founded as a radical feminist anti-war protest! Julia Ward Howe was an American abolitionist and social activist who began advocating for a mother’s day for peace in 1870. She was sickened by the destruction and carnage of the Civil & Franco-Prussian Wars and began thinking about what women could do to benefit humanity. Howe sought to find a way for women to express what she believed to be an innate motherly love for human beings. She believed that being a mother was an experience powerful enough to prevent any woman from wanting to watch her sons risk their lives to fight in a war. She aimed to provide an alternative female voice of peace and began holding anti-war conferences both in the United States and Britain. Beginning in 1872, she proclaimed every June 2nd as Mother’s Day for Peace, a day in which woman all over the world would come together and envision strategies for social change. The following is an excerpt from her Mother’s Day Proclamation:
“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: ‘We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We women of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.’ From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says ‘Disarm! Disarm!’ The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead…”
Howe’s vision wasn’t recognized until decades later when Anna Jarvis picked up on this idea. Jarvis was also an active feminist who viewed homemaker’s rights as essential. She had recently lost her own mother who, like Howe, was active in women’s circles and adamantly believed that motherhood could be used as a healing tool, In her mother’s honor, Jarvis campaigned for almost a decade to dedicate a day of the year in order to honor the work of all mothers. She chose a Sunday because she wanted it to be a “holy” day rather than not a holiday, and the second Sunday in May because it was the anniversary of her own mother’s death. Appreciating one’s own mother was less radical than protesting war and this incarnation of Mother’s Day became a movement. Mother’s Day services soon began being held in all U.S. states and in 1914, President Wilson made it an official national holiday!
Jarvis quickly became fed up with the commercialization of a national Mother’s Day. She threatened major lawsuits and engaged in acts of protest for the rest of her life. Of course, Jarvis’ frustrations were and continue to be beyond reasonable. Still, while the holiday drastically deviated from the visions of Jarvis and Howe, the value of “women’s work” was elevated to a higher level than it had ever previously been. This helped to pave the way for countless strides improving the American conception of the labor of motherhood.
Sources:
· “Julia Ward Howe: The Woman Behind Mother’s Day.” Interview by Amy Goodman
· Ivory Madison. “Mother’s Day for Peace: A Dramatic Reading of Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation.”
· The Ottowa Citizen. “Battling the Mother’s Day Monster.”
- by rachel, hoax #4
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Open Letter from Assata Shakur
Assata: In her own wordsMy name is Assata (“she who struggles”) Shakur (“the thankful one”), and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.
Political Prisoner to ExiledOn May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a “faulty tail light.”Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we were stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper then came to the car, opened the door and began to question us. Because we were black, and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he claimed he became “suspicious.” He then drew his gun, pointed it at us, and told us to put our hands up in the air, in front of us, where he could see them. I complied and in a split second, there was a sound that came from outside the car, there was a sudden movement, and I was shot once with my arms held up in the air, and then once again from the back. Zayd Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Forester was killed, and even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and killed Zayd Malik Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was charged with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest friend and comrade, and charged in the death of trooper Forester. Never in my life have I felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to help me to get to a safe place, and it was clear that he had lost his life, trying to protect both me and Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the gun that killed trooper Forester was found under Zayd’s leg, Sundiata Acoli, who was captured later, was also charged with both deaths. Neither Sundiata Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial. We were both convicted in the news media way before our trials. No news media was ever permitted to interview us, although the New Jersey police and the FBI fed stories to the press on a daily basis. In 1977, I was convicted by an all- white jury and sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my case, and who were also extremely fearful for my life.
New Jersey Police & the PopeThe U.S. Senate’s 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence operations inside the USA, revealed that “The FBI has attempted covertly to influence the publics perception of persons and organizations by disseminating derogatory information to the press, either anonymously or through “friendly” news contacts.” This same policy is evidently still very much in effect today. On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called a press conference to announce that New Jersey State Police had written a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to intervene on their behalf and to aid in having me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New Jersey State Police refused to make their letter public. Knowing that they had probably totally distort the facts, and attempted to get the Pope to do the devils work in the name of religion, I decided to write the Pope to inform him about the reality of’ “justice” for black people in the State of New Jersey and in the United States.[Cont. reading story]
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