05/10/2026
This painting is called, “A Mother of a Revolution.”
I was torn about what I wanted to post this Mother’s Day — whether to share the original Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870 or honor Marsha P. “Pay It No Mind” Johnson. In the end, I realized I wanted to honor both.
Considering the present conditions of our country and the conflicts unfolding across the world, both feel deeply relevant to me right now.
This post is offered in the hope that we might still move toward the greater ideals of freedom, dignity, peace, and human care that these historic voices represent.
“Arise, then... women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears! 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. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”
Happy Mother’s Day.
