• Listen to this segment

GUEST: Yanar Mohammed, Chair of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, Mimi Kennedy, actor and activist, advisory board chair of Progressive Democrats of America

As Americans will be buying Mother’s Day gifts and taking their mothers out to restaurants this weekend, the anti-war origins of Mothers Day will remain unbeknownst to many. In 1870, Julia Ward Howe penned the original Mothers Day proclamation as an impassioned call for pacifism and peace. In the proclamation, Howe wrote, “In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality be appointed to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, [and] the great and general interests of peace.” President Woodrow Wilson made Mothers Day an official holiday in May without any reference to its anti-war origins. However, in the spirit of the original Mothers Day proclamation, the antiwar women’s group, CodePink, will be gathering in the nation’s capital and cities across the country this Mothers Day to call for an end to the US war in Iraq. Locally, in Los Angeles participants will gather at the Arlington West Memorial and will march on the Santa Monica Pier for peace. Special guests will include Mimi Kennedy, Patricia Foulkrod, and Yannar Mohammed.

There will be a CODEPINK Mother’s Day Call for Peace in Santa Monica on Sunday May 13th from 2-4 pm at the Arlington West Memorial in Santa Monica Beach just north of the pier.

There will be a CODEPINK Mother’s Day vigil in Orange on Sunday, May 13th from 2-4 pm at the Traffic Circle in Old Towne Orange (intersection of Chapman Ave. & Glassell St.)