Million Mom March Mothers Day 2000, The

In the early 1960's I was 6 or 7 years old, living with my parents, a brother and a sister in a small town in the Midwest. I heard the name Martin Luther King, Jr. many times in our home. My father, a Presbyterian minister, was an avid supporter of Dr. King. Shortly after Dr. King was shot and killed, one of the elders in our church, offered my father the use of his small private plane to attend the memorial service. I learned later that it was this man's hope that the plane would crash and that my father would "get his brains bashed in." That was almost 40 years ago. Just last year my father received a phone call from this same man, out of the blue. He wanted my father's forgiveness for how he had treated him back then. I was raised in the Christian faith with the hope that this kind of reconciliation can happen between people, and with the conviction that guns are never to be used as a solution to a disagreement. For me, this march was a direct descendant of Dr. King's march, one he would have supported, had he been alive today. He, of all people, would have urged us not to be motivated by fear or hate, but always and only by love.

One of our sons, age 7, recently wrote a poem about peace. One day last winter, while studying about Dr. King at school and doing a unit about poetry, he sat down at the table in our living room and wrote a poem (much to my amazement, and without any prompting). Two lines from this poem come to my mind now: "I like peace, let there be joy!" and "I like peace, what will the future be like (who knows?)" He ends the poem with "I like this world." I like this world, too! I don't know what the future will be like, but I do know that I can strive to shape it, to make the world a safer place for all children and for their children. This is why I went to the Million-Mom March. It was also the closest I could get to being a part of Dr. King's experience there, and his "I have a dream" message. I have a dream, too! My dream is that one day all guns will be melted into bells or some other useful object --- "turned into plowshares." My dream is born of these convictions: my faith in God as a God of love, justice and forgiveness;perfect love casts out fear; the power of love is greater than the power of hate, all people are God's children.

One of the beautiful things about this march was its diversity and inclusivity. It was advertised as "a march for mothers and others." Indeed, there were a lot of "others" with the mothers there: fathers, brothers, uncles, sisters, aunts, grandparents. As I looked around me, and read the wide variety of signs people carried, I knew that there were people from every race, creed and class present. As for myself, I was there because of the generous invitation of two remarkable women -- a couple who have been together for 7 years -- who invited me to go with them. Both fifty-something, neither women has any children of their own, yet both have taken an active role in the lives of their nieces and nephews. Clearly, the children in our lives drew all of us together that day at the Mall in Washington D.C., about 750,000 from all parts of our country. There were people there from other countries, too, there to cheer us on! Five of these were brave mothers from Scotland; each had 5year-old daughters who were shot and killed one day at their school.

The list of speakers for the event was impressive. They were from many backgrounds, professions, and faiths. Among those who spoke were a police chief, an emergency room physician, a woman whose husband was a policeman killed on the job, several mothers who have lost children to gun violence, Raffi, the children's musician, other celebrities including the actresses Susan Sarandon and Rosie O'Donnel, Adimu Colon, of Black Entertainment Television, Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of The Children's Defense Fund, Anna Quindlen, an author and journalist. Two of Robert Kennedy's daughters spoke; one said that today we must be the voice of those leaders who were slain in the 1960.'s, we must be their voice for sensible gun laws. Although we came from many different backgrounds, our mutual concern for the safety of our children brought us together. Many of the mothers who spoke who have lost children to gun violence echoed this message: "I am here because I do not want any other families to go through what our family has gone through." Everywhere, there was a sense that "Your children are my children."

Getting to the heart of the issue for me, was Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union of Hebrew Congregations. Here are just some of the things he said: -- "The indiscriminate use of guns is an offense against God and humanity." -- "Our gunflooded society has turned weapons into idols, and the worship of idols must be recognized for what it is: blasphemy. The only appropriate religious response to blasphemy is sustained moral outrage!" -- "Our message to congress is this: We care deeply about this issue and we will hold you accountable." -- "The N.R.A. is drenched in the blood of our murdered children."