Mother's Day Anti-Violence. Period.
As we move into Mother's Day weekend, we are proud to have been the midwives for and to be performing at the Mother's Day Concert Against Gun Violence this Saturday night in New York City. The concert benefits the Children's Defense Fund and their continued work to to "protect children, not guns." (See photo and full story, below.)
Unfortunately, more kinds of violence will be on our minds: We will be singing knowing that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight are finally free from a decade of abuse and captivity, because of Berry's courageous actions. We sing knowing that their mothers, grandmothers, sisters and families finally have them back home. And with equal parts disbelief and outrage with the sheer volume of violence in our culture, we sing knowing that their neighbor, Charles Ramsey, helped the women escape but is himself a convicted abuser.
We sing with the words of Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation for Peace on our minds:
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.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
As we have for years, we will be singing for an end to violence: violence against women, violence against nations, violence against the planet.
We will be singing for an end to violence . . . period.
