“Everyone loves a parade”…onlookers and people near-by were drawn like magnets by the music. Merchants, shoppers, and many folks along the way gave the peace sign, thumbs-up, and thanked us. At times we stopped and sang along with the Raging Grannies – our message on this day in the words of Julia Ward Howe: “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of Justice!”
Photo – Bud Korotzer
Under sunny skies, about two hundred people met at the Merchants Gate at Columbus Circle for this year’s Mother’s Day Peace stroll. Led by Charlie Keil’s mobile horn section with the Raging Grannies bringing up the rear, we stepped off for a festive walk up the West Side of Manhattan, through the Craft Fair outside the Natural History Museum. Along the route, we handed out 1,000 pink flyers about Mother’s Day for Peace with information on the Collateral Repair Project. We stopped several times to read Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Peace Proclamation, and paused for two minutes of silence for the casualties of the Iraq War and Occupation, before heading across Central Park. We ended with a final reading of the proclamation on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum. We thank all the mothers, grandmothers, daughters, granddaughters, musicians, percussionists, partners, friends and spouses who joined us to make Mother’s Day a meaningful day for peace.
– Phyllis Cunningham & Nancy Kricorian
Granny Peace Brigade 