When you search for Mother’s Day photos, you usually find expected images—happy families, smiling mothers, and many, many flowers. However, you also find a surprising number of protest pictures. A protest on Mother’s Day brings special significance to causes. If mothers were willing to exchange a day of celebration for protest, it had to be for an issue close to their hearts.
Pins, posters, and placards show the importance of the peace movement in Mother’s Day protests. The woman above is demonstrating against the Reagan era program called the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka “Star Wars”) which aimed to expand the US’s defense system against possible nuclear attack.
The hospital workers’ strike above is notable for its mainly Black constituency, with major participants from the Civil Rights Movement. Women are prominently featured at the front. And even though it’s almost twenty years earlier, note the difference in style between the older woman in Minnesota and the striking women in South Carolina. The top woman is dressed for comfort, in sweats. The women in South Carolina wear much more formal clothes, including a nurse in her uniform.
In case you are wondering if protests still exist on Mother’s Day, here’s one in Boston you can join.
