CodePink, the colorful women's peace action group, sponsored a 24 hour
Mother's Day vigil in Lafayette Square across Pennsylvania Avenue from the
White House. National Park Service rules prohibit sleeping or camping in
the park so activities continued all night long. A few people did manage to
doze, unbothered by the U.S. Park Police who stood guard throughout the
night. *
Roughly two to three hundred people were present at any given moment
during the day; less than 50 stayed throughout the rather chilly night. A
handful of men joined in the vigil and more than a handful of children were
also present, some dressed in variations of the trademark pink color.
Started in 2002 to protest the forthcoming US invasion of Iraq, CodePink
took its name from the color alert system that supposedly signals terrorist
threats.
Like CodePink, Mother's Day began as a protest against war. Julia Ward
Howe, famous for writing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, proposed a
Mother's Day for Peace in 1870 and wrote a poem as her Proclamation. She was
appalled at the carnage of the recent US Civil War and the threat of more
with the impending Franco-Prussian War. Several
cities celebrated a Mother's Day for Peace in the Nineteenth Century. The
official, commercial version didn't begin until the early Twentieth Century;
in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day.
The vigil began at 3:00 Saturday afternoon with a procession to the
Ellipse to spell out the words
"Mom Says No to War," in a frame of cardboard coffins dressed in American
flags. This was followed
by teach-ins and a concert. Throughout the night CodePink ran activist
trainings, a scavenger hunt, yoga, and other activities. At dawn, a
delegation delivered hundreds of roses to the mothers visiting their injured
children at Walter Reed military hospital.
Throughout Sunday, healing ceremonies, processions, and meditations
alternated with rallies, speeches and protesting in front of the White
House. Letters to Laura Bush were read from the stage in Lafayette Square.
Perennial protestor Cindy Sheehan was joined by Susan Sarandon and Patch
Adams as well as lesser celebrities, some military moms and mothers from
Iraq. Comedian and long-time activist Dick Gregory made an unplanned
appearance. On hearing about the White House protest that morning while at home in Massachusetts, Gregory canceled his plans and flew to DC. He was
quietly standing in the crowd watching a rally when an African-American
participant pointed him out to CodePink founder Medea Benjamin; he was
promptly invited to speak. Gregory had come only with the intention of
participating in the civil disobedience planned for the end of the vigil.
As a veteran of 175 DC arrests, he knew the drill.
However, Mother Nature vetoed plans to get arrested.
Getting permits for events like this is complicated because jurisdiction
is shared by the National Park Service and the DC police department. In
addition, the Secret Service has a say in anything in front of the White
House. While protests take place in front of the White House fence all the
time, protestors are required to keep moving. If they pause for very long
they are subject to arrest. By the same token, sitting down on the
sidewalk in front of the fence is the easiest way to commit civil
disobedience. Most such actions are orchestrated — planned in advance with
police co-operation, not spontaneous.
After the final rally at 3:00 p.m. a hundred participants took hundreds of
roses from the vases lining the stage and sat down in front of the White
House fence. After more singing and chanting, roses were interlaced with
the iron spokes and most people dispersed. Around 3:45 about 15 people
gathered to get arrested.
Rain, which had been threatening all day, began to fall in large drops.
Pink umbrellas were hastily opened, while the police only removed the
roses from the fence. They told CodePink that no paddy wagons would be
available for several hours to take the protestors to jail. After some hasty
consultations, it was decided that civil disobedience could wait for another
day.
Mother Nature had declared that Mother's Day was not the right day to
go to jail, even for peace.
*Editor's Note: Jo's pictures can be seen at these two URLs:
http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=989 and
http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=988
Jo Freeman is a political scientist and attorny. Her most recent book is At Berkeley in the Sixties: Education of an Activist (Indiana U. Press 2004).
Her previous book, A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics, (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000) was reviewed by Emily Mitchell, a Senior Women Web Culture Watch critic.
Jo's other books include: "The Politics of Women's Liberation" (1975), winner of a 1975 prize from the American Political Science Association for the Best Scholarly Book on Women and Politics; five editions of "Women: A Feminist Perspective" (ed.). She has also edited "Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies" (1983), and (with Victoria Johnson) "Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties." She has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago (1973) and a J.D. from New York University School of Law (1982). Read more by and about Jo at http://www.jofreeman.com and email her with comments and questions at joreen@jofreeman.com
