reclaiming mother's day

do you know the origins of mother's day? i will ask that question all month until mother's day. most folks guess it began as a hallmark holiday. some say it was a son who had intended to visit his mother for years while she was alive but when she died suddenly, he started mother's day in her honor. a couple people think woodrow wilson started mother's day after world war one. still other people say a mother started it to get her children to buy her gifts. many people think it started as a church holiday.

everyone is wrong. mother's day is not about buying mom flowers or cards, or even cooking dinner for her & spoiling her one day out of the year. Mother's day started as a passionate call for women to gather & fight for peace. In 1870. Ms. Julia Ward Howe wrote the most impassioned speech that makes me cry every time i attempt to read it.

She says first we must not allow irrelevant agencies to make important decision for us! imagine that! and she says we must not allow our sons to be taken from us to unlearn what we've taught them of charity, justice & mercy. and she says we must feel so tender to women of all nations that we will not allow our sons to injure their sons.

And she says, as men have often foresaken the plow & anvil at the summons of war, shall we women leave what can be left at home & join a general congress of women to promote the great & general interest of peace. She says first we must bewail & commemorate the dead. Then we must take each other's councel towards this ends of finding the ways this great family of nations can live in peace.

It is one of the most inspiring, beautiful, intense calls i've read - and to think it was proclaimed in 1870! before women even had the right to vote - the year african american men were given the right to vote.

I think it is vital that we recalim this holiday. I think it will be an amazing organizing event, inspiring lots of women not normally active to come out & celebrate with us! in pink peace, sam