The other day, a Twin Cities woman called the office of Women Against Military Madness in Minneapolis, saying she was worried and angry about the possibility of war with Iraq. President Bush, she said, her voice shaking, is leading the nation into an endless war, and she feared her grandchildren would inherit a world filled with hatred and aggression.
The staff member who took the call agreed that the situation is terribly frightening but said there are concrete actions that people opposed to war with Iraq can take.
"If I have to become an antiwar protester at age 53," the caller said with resolve, "then darn it, I will."
Codirector Jen Randolph Reise, 24, said the 20-year-old organization, known as WAMM, is getting many calls like that, from people who hadn't previously considered themselves activists or even antiwar. Since the terrorism of Sept. 11, WAMM membership has risen by 355, to 1,528.
WAMM founders
Judy Griesedieck
Star Tribune Most members are middle-class Twin Cities-area women who are white and middle-aged or older. Many are longtime peace activists. However, "We're attracting more and more younger people and people from a variety of backgrounds, which is encouraging," Reise said. Men are welcome. So are people of color.
"This is not a fringe movement," she said. "I believe it's amazing how many Minnesota people are coming out against the war. We're trying to be a voice for sanity, and people are responding."
Longtime WAMM member Marie Braun of Minneapolis can testify to that. She recently saw a need for big lawn signs that show opposition to the war, so she contracted with a printer for 100 2-by-4-foot signs reading, "Say no to war on Iraq, call your congress person." She wondered whether she had ordered too many. As it turned out, no problem. They were in big demand, and she has a waiting list of 250 people who are willing to spend $10 each to cover costs.
Said Polly Mann, a WAMM founder who's now 82, "The office is jumping."
20 years ago
When WAMM was founded in 1982, the United States was increasing military spending, stockpiling nuclear weapons and cutting budgets for education and health. Mann and Marianne Hamilton, two longtime peace and civil rights activists, were inspired by polls showing that most women were antiwar but not organized to challenge government priorities.
Mann would say, "Polly, we've got to do something about this," to which Hamilton would respond, "Yes, Marianne, you do." And Mann would say, "Yes, Polly, you do."
So finally together they did. They gathered a group of women at Loretta's Tea Room in Minneapolis to form what became WAMM, fretting at first that the name might sound violent.
"We used our Christmas card lists to get the money to start up," Mann recalled recently. "We sent a letter to people we thought might have $100." They raised enough to rent an office and hire a staff. That staff, she said, made the difference between the long-lasting WAMM and the many other peace-and-justice groups across the country that come and go. "We can get more done" because WAMM is known for a sustained effort and as a center of information, she said.
"Never a meeting without an action" was the motto from the start. The first meeting was near the University of Minnesota on a January day when the temperature was a nasty 20 or 30 below, but the women vowed to make their organization known. They walked down University Avenue with anti-military signs. They marched only a block or two, but a New York Times reporter in Minneapolis for an unrelated purpose happened to see the tiny demonstration and wrote about it.
That was the beginning of WAMM's visibility. It has become known for creative press-gathering activities, praised by sympathizers and denounced by detractors as silly, useless and harmful to national interests. (Members say they get thumbs up, thumbs down and middle fingers up when they're making their views known.)
. In 1992, Christopher Columbus' name vanished from the Minneapolis street named in his honor. Members of WAMM and the Spirit of the Lakes Church covered street signs on Columbus Avenue with paper sleeves naming Indian leaders of the past and present.
. WAMM members showed their opposition to "war toys" by trying to buy out a supply of guns and toy soldiers at a Maplewood Target store on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1986 and 1987. Television coverage was heavy. The activists later returned the toys -- for refunds -- and said they'd made their point.
. In August 1990 WAMM and other local antiwar groups held the first protest in the United States against troop deployment leading to the Gulf War, which led to an appearance by then-codirector Lucia Wilkes on CNN's "Larry King Live."
Less glamorous
Not all has been so media-inviting. Without attracting much attention for years, WAMM members have protested, written newsletters and circulated petitions. (Some were arrested, although WAMM, to protect its tax status, doesn't plan or cosponsor events that call for civil disobedience.)
They've opposed U.S. military action in places from Panama and Nicaragua to Iraq and Afghanistan. They speak to classes and provide materials to public-school teachers "to better educate students about U.S. foreign policy," especially in the Middle East. They advocate federal funding for education and health care, "instead of a bloated Pentagon budget and corporate welfare." Mann ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 1988 on a peace-and-justice platform.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, WAMM has focused on opposing "the war on terrorism in all it forms, including attacks on civil liberties of immigrants and activists," according to Reise.
Of the group's $125,000 annual budget, 82 percent comes from member donations, most of them small, Reise said. (Annual membership costs $40.) The rest comes from grants of about $1,000 to $3,000, primarily from churches.
As for Iraq, Reise and Mann said, the United States hasn't tried hard enough to find nonmilitary solutions. To Reise, part of the tragedy is that "it's hard to see options when we're so close to war. We need to be dealing with root problems -- poverty and injustice -- before it comes to this." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20021013/bcdfef43/attachment.htm> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 6107 bytes Desc: not available URL: <../attachments/20021013/bcdfef43/attachment.jpe>