Over 400 women, men, young, old, and children gathered on March 12th and marched to MacArthur Park. With placards and banners waving, marchers in what many said was one of the most racially mixed marches they had been to in Southern California, including moms with their babies, grandmothers, immigrant families, people with disabilities, Veterans, domestic workers, students, LGBTQ youth, artists, church groups, anti-war activists, representatives from organized labor and more, recognized the contribution of mothers, grandmothers & other caregivers to survival, and demanded that resources going to weapons of war and banks go instead to caregivers, healthy food, decent housing, health care, education, pay equity, care of Mother Earth. Mothers - from immigrant women facing deportation, to families whose children have been unjustly removed by the Department of Children and Family Services, to parents of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan - pressed to be reunited with their children.

The cross-generational speak-out in the park included anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan, Veterans For Peace, rappers Guerrilla Queenz, Olmeca, Skim and Shoshona as well as poetry performances by Janaci and Sabreen Shabazz and more.

The LA event was co-chaired by Margaret Prescod of Women of Color/GWS and Nancy Berlin of California Partnership. Alexandria House, CALIF, the South Central Farmers, Veterans For Peace and several families from DCFS Give Us Back Our Children brought food for the marchers. In Southern California, this event was coordinated by the Mothers March Planning Group including Alexandria House, CALIF, California Partnership, DCFS Give Us Back Our Children, Every Mother is a Working Mother, Military Families Speak Out, Veterans For Peace, Global Women Strike/LA, South Central Farmers, Women of Color/GWS. Co-sponsors included: All of Us or None; Susan Burton, A New Way of Life; ANSWER Coalition–LA; CARECEN; CISPES; Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of LA (CHIRLA); Eastside Café; Equal Action: Frank Dorrel, Publisher Addicted to War; Hunger Action; IAC-LA/Bail Out the People Movement; International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network; Jerry Acosta, national senior rep, Utility Workers of America; Long Beach Area Peace Network; Office of the Americas; Orange County Peace Coalition; Reverend Richard Byrd, KRST Unity Center; Ruach Christian Community Fellowship; SiGAw; Cindy Sheehan; United Food & Commercial Workers Local 770.

The Mothers March was called by the Global Women’s Strike and took place also in Guyana, Haiti, India, Italy, Peru, Poland, the UK, Venezuela and in Philadelphia, Milwaukee and the SF Bay Area. KPFK 90.7FM Pacifica Radio was the media sponsor. For more info, contact 323-276-9833, la@allwomencount.net, www.globalwomenstrike.net

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