Julia Ward Howe, best known for writing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1862, began working to heal the wounds of the Civil War once the war ended. By 1870 Howe had become convinced that working for peace was just as important as her efforts working for equality as an abolitionist and suffragette. In that year she penned her “Mother’s Peace Day Proclamation,” exhorting women to:
“Say firmly: ‘We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with 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 of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.’”
Beginning in 1872 and stretching over the next decade, Howe held unofficial anti-war Mother’s Day events in New York and Boston.
It wasn’t until 1914 that Mother’s Day was declared a national holiday by Woodrow Wilson, although Wilson made no reference to peace.
Honoring the origin of Mother’s Day, the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in Boston sponsors an annual Mother’s Day walk for peace to end urban violence. Tina Chery founded the Institute in 1996 when she lost her son to gun violence, and this year’s Mother’s Day walk marked its 26th year.
Chery believes that mothers need to work for peace in response to domestic gun violence in the U.S. just as much as they need to work for peace internationally.
The Louis D. Brown Peace Institute supports survivors of homicide victims and has developed a peace curriculum for area schools: “Through education, collaboration, and policy advocacy, the Peace Institute works to raise awareness of the cause and consequences of violence on the individual, the family, and the community.”
Since the white supremacist killing of 10 black people in the Buffalo grocery store on May 14 and the Uvalde, Texas elementary school killing of 19 children and 2 adults on May 24, faith leaders and others are once again calling for sensible gun laws. According to a 2018 estimate, America has more firearms (around 400 million) than it does citizens, and the pandemic has caused a giant spike in gun production since then. An FBI breakdown of active shooter incidents in the US shows a 96.8% increase from 2017 to 2021.
This month, as we have once again experienced horrific gun violence in this country, remember Howe’s words: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword [or gun] of murder is not the balance of justice.” Ask yourself, “What can I do to sow seeds of peace in an atmosphere of violence? How can I speak up when I am uneasy with the words of those around me? What is my part in influencing my legislative representatives, my president?”
[This is a further development of the May 2013 Executive Soul blog.]