Another Mother for Peace (AMP) is a grass-roots anti-war advocacy group founded in 1967 in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. [1] [2] [3] The association is "dedicated to eliminating the use of war as a means of solving disputes among nations, people and ideologies. To accomplish this, they seek to educate citizens to take an active role in opposing war and building peace." [4]
The inspiration for Another Mother for Peace came out of a child's first birthday in 1967. Barbara Avedon, a former writer for The Donna Reed Show who would later co-create the series Cagney and Lacey , had invited friends to her southern California home to celebrate the birthday of her son, Josh. Opposed to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, Avedon expressed her fear that she could be raising her son only to send him off to war. [5] She and others present agreed that they wanted to take some action. [5]
On February 8, 1967, [6] [7] [1] 15 women met in Avedon's living room to talk about ways they could work together to help bring an end to the war. "We wanted to... communicate our horror and disgust to our elected representatives in one concerted action," Avedon later wrote. "We were not 'bearded, sandaled youths,' 'wild-eyed radicals' or dyed in the wool 'old line freedom fighters' and we wanted the Congress to know that they were dealing with an awakening and enraged middle class." [5]
AMP's first action was a Mother's Day campaign in opposition to the Vietnam War. Their plan was to send then-President Lyndon B. Johnson and members of Congress Mother's Day cards expressing their yearning for peace. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
Los Angeles artist Lorraine (née Art) Schneider [12] [13] [14] donated the use of Primer, [15] [16] [17] a striking illustration, for the Mother's Day peace cards, a sunflower on yellow background amid the slogan "War is not healthy for children and other living things." [1]
The Mother's Day card featured Schneider's sunflower design on the front. Inside was this text:
For my Mother's Day gift this year,
I don't want candy or flowers.
I want an end to killing.We who have given life
must be dedicated to preserving it. Please talk peace. [8]
The yellow-and-black logo proved instantly popular. [7] The initial printing of 1000 cards soon sold out. [1] By the end of May 1967, 200,000 of the Mother's Day cards had been sold. [1] [8] Members of Congress were "flooded" with cards, and Senator J. William Fulbright was photographed at his desk among piles of the AMP cards. [18] The logo was also used in jewelry, posters, pamphlets, bumper stickers and other items. [8] The distinctive calligraphy associated with AMP materials was produced by in-house designer Gerta Katz. [19] [20]
Another Mother for Peace's reliance on middle-class respectability and their maternalist peace rhetoric linked the efforts of Another Mother for Peace's members to a long history of women's peace activism, from Women Strike for Peace to Julia Ward Howe's efforts to create Mother's Day. [21]
| External image | |
|---|---|
| April 5, 1969 | |
 "a little girl holds a sign that says, "War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things" during an Anti-War Rally at City Hall in San Francisco, California". [22] |
AMP's founding mission was "to educate women to take an active role in eliminating war as a means of solving disputes between nations, people and ideologies." [1] Through its newsletters, AMP gave "peace homework" to its members, offering concrete ideas for action against the war and war in general. AMP opposed anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs), chemical warfare, biological warfare and multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), which contained multiple warheads on a single missile cone, thereby evading SALT limitations. Revenues from the sale of items imprinted with the sunflower logo supported AMP's Invest in Peace fund; the fund supported congressmen who advocated for withdrawal from Vietnam and who opposed ABMs and MIRVs. AMP sought to demonstrate a link between U.S. war policy and oil interests, and pushed for investigation into U.S. oil leases off the coast of Vietnam. In 1971, co-chairmen Barbara Avedon and Dorothy B. Jones testified before the U.S. House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in opposition to the military budget. [1]
AMP advocated for a U.S. Department of Peace that would examine nonmilitary alternatives to conflict resolution. [23] [24] The group published a 56-page pamphlet by political scientist Frederick L. Schuman in support of House and Senate bills introduced in the 91st Congress, 1st Session (1969) proposing a cabinet level Department of Peace. The proposed department would train citizens for public service, invest in anti-poverty programs abroad, and assume management of certain agencies such as the Agency for International Development, the Peace Corps, the International Agricultural Development Service of the Department of Agriculture, and others. Schuman argued that the Department of State's mission was to advance U.S. national interests, not to plan for peace, and "[p]eople get what they plan for..." [23] Schuman traced the idea for an American peace agency to Benjamin Banneker's Almanack of 1793. [23]
In its June 1970 newsletter, [25] AMP launched a letter writing campaign targeting eight weapons manufacturers who also sold goods in the consumer market. The newsletter provided names and addresses for the presidents and board chairmen of the following eight corporations: Bulova Watch, Honeywell, General Electric, Westinghouse, Motorola, Whirlpool, General Motors and Dow Chemical. "Let's tell them where we're really at! ... We represent a lot of toasters - a lot of dollars - a lot of public opinion..." AMP's newsletter said. [26] The campaign's purpose was to pressure the manufacturers into ending their participation in the war industry by threatening to boycott their consumer products if they did not. According to a 1972 article analyzing the campaign, it was not effective because too few messages reached the target companies, and the targets were so numerous "that no one target was strongly affected by the campaign." [26]
At a Mother's Day Assembly in Los Angeles in May 1969, AMP introduced The Pax Materna, "a permanent, irrevocable... understanding among mothers of the world:"
I join with my sisters in every land
In The Pax Materna—
A permanent declaration of peace
That transcends our ideological differences.
In the nuclear shadow, war is obsolete.
I will no longer suffer it in silence
Nor sustain it by complicity.
They shall not send my son
To fight another mother's son.
For now, forever, there is no mother
During the Vietnam war the AMP newsletter was sent to between 130,000 and 400,000 homes yearly. The organization produced two films: You Don't Have to Buy War, Mrs. Smith and Another Family for Peace. [8] Donna Reed, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Debbie Reynolds, and Dick Van Dyke appeared on national television and in public appearances on behalf of AMP. [1]
AMP became less active as U.S. involvement in Vietnam declined. Though most activity had ceased by 1979, the AMP newsletter was published until 1985, at which time the office was closed. Another Mother for Peace's records from the organization's birth to 1985 have been in the care of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, since 1986. [1]
Another Mother for Peace enjoyed active support from a number of well-known personalities. These include former Miss America Bess Myerson; and actors Debbie Reynolds, Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman, Dick van Dyke, [1] Lauren Bacall, Janice Rule, Whitney Blake and Donna Winters [5] Associated Press reporter George Zucker later described visiting the AMP office in the early years: "On the day I visited their rented office in Beverly Hills, actor Robert Vaughn, then star of the TV series, Man from U.N.C.L.E. , sat at a long table stuffing envelopes. Actress Donna Reed worked beside him." [5] [9] [11]
As the United States went to war in the early 21st century, Carol Schneider, daughter of Lorrainne Schneider, and Joshua Avedon, son of Barbara Avedon, revived the organization. [5] AMP operates as a not-for-profit, non-partisan, 501(c)(3) organization, offering "peace homework" and distributing educational materials, seeking to engage citizens in pursuing alternatives to armed conflict. Sales of posters and other materials with the sunflower logo support the group's efforts. [28]
The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to integrate Europe's coal and steel industries into a single common market based on the principle of supranationalism. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany. The organization's subsequent enlargement of both members and duties ultimately led to the creation of the European Union.
Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman was a Luxembourg-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian democrat political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a reformist Minister of Finance and a Foreign Minister, he was instrumental in building postwar European and trans-Atlantic institutions and was one of the founders of the European Communities, the Council of Europe and NATO. The 1964–1965 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. In 2021, Schuman was declared venerable by Pope Francis in recognition of his acting on Christian principles.
Donna Reed was an American actress. Her career spanned more than 40 years, with performances in more than 40 films. She is well known for her portrayal of Mary Hatch Bailey in Frank Capra's fantasy holiday film It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Reed won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Fred Zinnemann's war drama film From Here to Eternity (1953).
On December 1, 1969, the Selective Service System of the United States conducted two lotteries to determine the order of call to military service in the Vietnam War in the year 1970, for men born from January 1, 1944, to December 31, 1950. These lotteries occurred during a period of conscription in the United States that lasted from 1947 to 1973. It was the first time a lottery system had been used to select men for military service since 1942. The lottery would establish the priority of call based on the birth dates of registrants.
Daniel Joseph Berrigan was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, Christian pacifist, playwright, poet, and author.
Walt Whitman Rostow was an American economist, professor and political theorist who served as national security advisor to president of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1969.
Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War began with demonstrations in 1965 against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War and grew into a broad social movement over the ensuing several years. This movement informed and helped shape the vigorous and polarizing debate, primarily in the United States, during the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s on how to end the Vietnam War.
The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was a massive demonstration and teach-in across the United States against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. It took place on October 15, 1969, followed a month later, on November 15, 1969, by a large Moratorium March in Washington, D.C.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) is an American tax-exempt non-profit organization and corporation founded in 1967 to oppose the United States policy and participation in the Vietnam War. VVAW says it is a national veterans' organization that campaigns for peace, justice, and the rights of all United States military veterans. It publishes a twice-yearly newsletter, The Veteran; this was earlier published more frequently as 1st Casualty (1971–1972) and then as Winter Soldier (1973–1975).
William Calhoun Baggs was an American journalist and editor of The Miami News. He was one of a small group of Southern newspaper editors who campaigned for civil rights for African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. Baggs became an early opponent of the Vietnam War.
Women Strike for Peace was a women's peace activist group in the United States. In 1961, nearing the height of the Cold War, around 50,000 women marched in 60 cities around the United States to demonstrate against the testing of nuclear weapons. It was the largest national women's peace protest during the 20th century. Another group action was led by Dagmar Wilson, with about 1,500 women gathering at the foot of the Washington Monument while President John F. Kennedy watched from the White House. The protest helped "push the United States and the Soviet Union into signing a nuclear test-ban treaty two years later". Reflecting the era in which the group's leaders had been raised, between the First-wave feminism and the Second-wave feminism movements, their actions and pleas leaned towards female self-sacrifice rather than towards their own self-interests. However, they pushed the power of a concerned mother to the forefront of American politics, transforming the mother from a "passive victim of war to active fighter for peace".
The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which became the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, was a coalition of American antiwar activists formed in November 1966 to organize large demonstrations in opposition to the Vietnam War. The organization was informally known as "the Mobe".
The Vietnam Day Committee (VDC) was a coalition of left-wing political groups, student groups, labour organizations, and pacifist religions in the United States of America that opposed the Vietnam War during the counterculture era. It was formed in Berkeley, California in the spring of 1965 by activist Jerry Rubin, and was active through the majority of the Vietnam war, organizing several rallies and marches in California as well as coordinating and sponsoring nationwide protests.
In the 1960s, several "be-ins" were held in Central Park, Manhattan, New York City to protest against various issues such as U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and racism.
The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet is a photograph of Jan Rose Kasmir, at that time an American high-school student. This iconic photograph was taken by French photographer Marc Riboud. Riboud photographed Kasmir on 21 October 1967 while taking part with over 100,000 anti-war activists in the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam's March on the Pentagon to protest U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Seventeen-year-old Kasmir was shown clasping a chrysanthemum and gazing at bayonet-wielding soldiers. The photo was featured in the December 30, 1969 special edition of Look magazine under the title The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet. The photo was republished world-wide and became a symbol of the flower power movement. Smithsonian Magazine later called it "a gauzy juxtaposition of armed force and flower child innocence".
Draft-card burning was a symbol of protest performed by thousands of young men in the United States and Australia in the 1960s and early 1970s. The first draft-card burners were American men participating in the opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The first well-publicized protest was in December 1963, with a 22-year-old conscientious objector, Gene Keyes, setting fire to his card on Christmas Day in Champaign, Illinois. In May 1964, a larger demonstration, with about 50 people in Union Square, New York, was organized by the War Resisters League chaired by David McReynolds.
Michael Kelvin Ferber was the youngest of the five defendants in the federal anti-draft trial in the spring of 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts. The trial attracted national attention because one of the defendants was Dr. Benjamin Spock, the well-known pediatrician and author of the best-selling The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. The other defendants were the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., chaplain of Yale University; Mitchell Goodman, novelist and teacher; and Marcus Raskin, a lawyer who served briefly on the U.S. National Security Council under Kennedy and co-founded the Institute for Policy Studies. The trial was known as "The Spock Trial" and the defendants as "The Boston Five".
George Russell Lakey is an activist, sociologist, and writer who added academic underpinning to the concept of nonviolent revolution. He also refined the practice of experiential training for activists which he calls "Direct Education". A Quaker, he has co-founded and led numerous organizations and campaigns for justice and peace.
Madeleine Agnes Sharp was a British physician and peace campaigner. She was known for her work to provide medical and scientific aid to Vietnam and as a general practitioner in Coventry.
Another Mother for Peace began in March 1967 when 15 women in Beverly Hills, frustrated by the escalation of the Vietnam war, printed 1000 Mother's Day cards to send to their Congressmen...In May 1969, the first annual Mother's Day Assembly was held in Los Angeles. At that time, AMP also introduced a Pax Materna...
On the face of the simple, black and yellow card was a crude drawing of a sunflower. Between the leaves in a child's scrawl were the poignant words, War is not healthy for children and other living things. In a day of angry anti-war rhetoric, the muted message was more powerful than the loudest bullhorn. Inside the card, the plea for peace continued: For my Mother's Day gift this year, I don't want candy or flowers. I want an end to killing. We who have given life must be dedicated to preserving it. Please talk peace.
Another Mother for Peace's first action was to make a Mother's Day card to send to members of Congress and the President. ... From 1986 to 2003, Gerta Katz was trustee for the Sunflower logo and the "War is not healthy for children and other living things" trademark and copyright.
Said Mrs. Avedon: It all started when I had some Hollywood friends over to see my son Josh, who was about to have his first birthday. The year had gone so fast. I realized then that someday I may have to send him to war.
Actor Robert Vaughn, star of the "Man From U.N.C.L.E." television series, is among the group's top male boosters. He plugs the cards at personal appearances and even helps stuff envelopes. Other volunteers are actresses Whitney Blake, Lauren Bacall, Janice Rule (Mrs. Ben Gazzarra) and Donna Winters, plus the wives of Dean Martin, Dick Van Dyke and Herschel Bernardi. The wife of conductor Leonard Bernstein offered help from New York, and an order came from Gloria Vanderbilt.
41 pages
Contains text of S.953, 91st Congress, 1st session, a Bill to promote the peaceful resolution of international conflict, and for other purposes (Peace act)--p. 32-56. 56 pages;
University of Michigan, HathiTrust Digital Library
via: Wisconsin Historical Society; Owner: Brünn, Harris Watts Collection - Ephemera Soldiers Movements, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
In May 1969, the first annual Mother's Day Assembly was held in Los Angeles where the organization unveiled a Pax Materna, which stated, "No mother is enemy to another mother."
"War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things and Sunflower design" is a registered trademark and copyright 1968, 2003 of ®Another Mother for Peace, Inc. All rights reserved.