HONORING THE WOMEN OF Veterans For Peace – for IWD and Women’s Month - March, we honor the women who are veterans, the women who are and have been close to veterans, the other women who have chosen to join us – all the women – who have provided leadership, skills, comradeship and inspiration, and who have carried out a lot of VFP’s work.
DID YOU KNOW?
• That IWD, March 8, had its origins in the US, with
* the 1909 strike of 20,000 immigrant women garment workers
* the aftermath of the deaths of women workers in 1911 at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory
* the Bread and Roses strike in 1912 in Lawrence, MA
• That International Women’s Day (IWD) was originally International Working Women’s Day. The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) writes, International Working Women’s Day was and remains a call for change that was rooted in the labor movement’s struggle for social, political, and economic rights of working-class women. https://apwu.org/news/labor-history/history-international-working-women’s-day
• That a massive women’s march in Russia on March 8 (and 9), 1917 for Peace and Bread, led to the Tsar’s abdication and sparked the Russian Revolution. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/womens-protest-sparked-russian-revolution-international-womens-day
SONGS – with a focus on working women and struggle (thank you, Elise Bryant)
1. We Were There by Bev Grant: https://youtu.be/Cjnyk06MZRY?si=gfqYvhVARBatVWIS
2. All the Voting Women adapted by Lynn Marie Smith: https://youtu.be/BmS0qFhTCVc?si=sKeOI7ziEhFXohxV
3. Union Maid sung by Anne Feeney: https://youtu.be/6dgwbpiFowM?si=vuVeeqepGs_iXl4t
4. I am a Union Woman sung by Bobbie McGee: https://youtu.be/3arYWg7MtWk?si=ScmKchIn4N6ziv5P
5. Bread and Roses sung by Women of the World: https://youtu.be/94mSln34ZwA?si=9nIrd1jtE9zX0qnc