Another JGEPA nominee. (Josef Goebbels Excellence in Propaganda Award). Lots to choose from here - I can't believe they paid someone to write this drivel.
http://www.denverpost.com/life/maddside0905.htm
Million Mom March modeled after MADD
By Jenny Deam
Denver Post Staff Writer
Sept. 5, 2000 - A year ago, a New Jersey stay-at-home mother was transfixed in horror by what she saw on her television screen. Heavily armed police were leading a daisy chain of tiny children out of a Los Angeles Jewish Community Center preschool where a gunman had just opened fire.
Donna Dees Thomas' daughters went to preschool. They even went to a Jewish Community Center preschool. It could have been them.
The next day, Thomas began working to launch a march on Washington demanding stricter gun control in this country. It would be on Mother's Day. It would be called the Million Mom March.
"What has this world become when we need security for children to finger paint?" she was quoted as saying.
In San Francisco, a professional organizer of non-profit groups named Andrew McGuire already was working on the same cause. In 1998, he had been given $4.5 million to create a national grassroots organization for gun control. "They said we need a MADD for guns," McGuire said.
McGuire knew a little something about the success of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. He was one of its original board members. He saw public opinion about drunk driving change. He saw laws get changed.
McGuire's new foundation was to be called the Bell Campaign, to symbolize the tolling of a bell for every person lost to gun violence. The organization was to kick off in late May of 1999.
But then came Columbine, and the strategy changed. On May 1, McGuire and the Bell Campaign were in Denver to lend support to the victims of the school shooting. Their bell tolled for them.
By September 1999, Thomas called McGuire and asked for his help. She said she had organized several hundred mothers for the march but wasn't up to starting her own organization. Maybe they could join forces.
On May 14, an estimated 750,000 people showed up on the Washington Mall -- movies stars side by side with moms pushing strollers -- all decrying gun violence. All the while the cameras rolled.
Within a week the Bell campaign officially changed its name to the Million Mom March Foundation and began procedures to register as a lobbying group.
McGuire makes no secret that he is modeling Million Mom March after MADD. Why? "Because it works," he says.
Grassroots organizations led by mothers have a special power in this country. The phenomenon dates back to the 1830s, when the "moral mother" emerged as a fixture in society. Typically upper-class women, usually white, these mothers were allowed by society to stray outside their domestic boundaries to do good for the community.
The activism these women launched was acceptable only because it was justified as for the good of their children, says Anne Marie Pois, an instructor in women's studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Many of the charitable organizations in place today can be traced back to that era.
"They were seen as looking out for their children," Pois said. "But ...- they had to reach out to the community because they realized what happened in their community would eventually touch their families." What propels these women into the public arena?
Very often it is anger, says Katherine Saltzman, interim associate vice president of academic affairs at Metropolitan State College. "There are things that open your eyes so widely you can't get them shut again. You feel compelled to do something."
Copyright 2000 The Denver Post.
You can contact this "reporter" at: living@denverpost.com
http://www.denverpost.com/life/maddside0905.htm
Million Mom March modeled after MADD
By Jenny Deam
Denver Post Staff Writer
Sept. 5, 2000 - A year ago, a New Jersey stay-at-home mother was transfixed in horror by what she saw on her television screen. Heavily armed police were leading a daisy chain of tiny children out of a Los Angeles Jewish Community Center preschool where a gunman had just opened fire.
Donna Dees Thomas' daughters went to preschool. They even went to a Jewish Community Center preschool. It could have been them.
The next day, Thomas began working to launch a march on Washington demanding stricter gun control in this country. It would be on Mother's Day. It would be called the Million Mom March.
"What has this world become when we need security for children to finger paint?" she was quoted as saying.
In San Francisco, a professional organizer of non-profit groups named Andrew McGuire already was working on the same cause. In 1998, he had been given $4.5 million to create a national grassroots organization for gun control. "They said we need a MADD for guns," McGuire said.
McGuire knew a little something about the success of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. He was one of its original board members. He saw public opinion about drunk driving change. He saw laws get changed.
McGuire's new foundation was to be called the Bell Campaign, to symbolize the tolling of a bell for every person lost to gun violence. The organization was to kick off in late May of 1999.
But then came Columbine, and the strategy changed. On May 1, McGuire and the Bell Campaign were in Denver to lend support to the victims of the school shooting. Their bell tolled for them.
By September 1999, Thomas called McGuire and asked for his help. She said she had organized several hundred mothers for the march but wasn't up to starting her own organization. Maybe they could join forces.
On May 14, an estimated 750,000 people showed up on the Washington Mall -- movies stars side by side with moms pushing strollers -- all decrying gun violence. All the while the cameras rolled.
Within a week the Bell campaign officially changed its name to the Million Mom March Foundation and began procedures to register as a lobbying group.
McGuire makes no secret that he is modeling Million Mom March after MADD. Why? "Because it works," he says.
Grassroots organizations led by mothers have a special power in this country. The phenomenon dates back to the 1830s, when the "moral mother" emerged as a fixture in society. Typically upper-class women, usually white, these mothers were allowed by society to stray outside their domestic boundaries to do good for the community.
The activism these women launched was acceptable only because it was justified as for the good of their children, says Anne Marie Pois, an instructor in women's studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Many of the charitable organizations in place today can be traced back to that era.
"They were seen as looking out for their children," Pois said. "But ...- they had to reach out to the community because they realized what happened in their community would eventually touch their families." What propels these women into the public arena?
Very often it is anger, says Katherine Saltzman, interim associate vice president of academic affairs at Metropolitan State College. "There are things that open your eyes so widely you can't get them shut again. You feel compelled to do something."
Copyright 2000 The Denver Post.
You can contact this "reporter" at: living@denverpost.com
