REFLECTIONS AS THE HBA 2012 WOMAN OF THE YEAR

Topic #2 - - Mothers as Courageous Leaders

All of us know how courageous mothers are - - and all that they do and sacrifice for others. But most do not know the real origin of Mother’s Day. Julia Ward Howe, the composer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic was sickened by the carnage of the Civil war in the US. In 1870, appalled at that time by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, she declared a Mothers’ Day Proclamation for Peace and had it translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German and Swedish and disseminated internationally.

”arise arise …..great congress of women of all nationalities who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears… We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies… and our children 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 to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.” She continued, ” …let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace…”

Two years later, in 1872, JWH went to London to spread her message, and when an established peace organization there would not let her speak to them because of her gender, she hired a hall and conducted her own meetings.

I love this little piece of history because it speaks to the story of women’s leadership. One hundred and fifty years later, whether advocating for peace or justice or our families, women leaders continue their struggle to break through the glass ceiling and cement walls for a purpose. A purpose worth fighting for.