Sherry Chandler

An Ordinary Woman

Elaine Fowler Palencia has graciously allowed me to share with you this e-mail she sent yesterday:

Last night Michael and I heard Cindy Sheehan, Peace Mom, speak at the U of I .

Not pretty, not well dressed, not particularly well-spoken, not a complex thinker, but glowing with the determination to stop the killing of our children and theirs. I was deeply moved by her conviction, sacrifice, and fearlessness, in the mold of Martin Luther King. An ordinary woman lifted up into another place.

The world has done all it can to her and she doesn’t care about what may come.

A local businessman, who filmed her every move, broke in and taunted, “Who’s paying you? You’re ruining impressionable minds, you’re destroying America,” etc. What finally shut him up was an Iraqi grocer, longtime Champaign resident, who jumped to his feet shouting, “Let her speak! Bush didn’t kill your brother, he killed mine!”

The audience was made up of student activists (not nearly enough) and people our age who lived through Vietnam. When I spoke to her afterwards, I asked her if she saw many people in the 30-50 range at her events. “Not many,” she said.

It made me so sad. She was just back from Turkey, where people from Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, all over the Middle East came up to speak with her. Not one wanted the U.S. in Iraq. They wanted to know why Bush was re-elected and what was wrong with the American people to allow American aggression. She has no irony or sarcasm in her, just blunt talk about the “Reich Wing”, the “monstrosity in the White House,” and how disappointed she is with the Democrats, who she sees as also part of the War Party. The whole event upset me so much I couldn’t sleep for hours that night, mostly because of a sense of futility. She’s done so much and has the old saints on her side—Daniel Ellsberg, Joan Baez—but the war machine is so big The kids were enthusiastic but not like they were in the 60s, probably because there’s no draft.

See her if you can, Elaine

As we observe Women’s History Month and as we approach the black 4-year anniversary of Bush’s folly, we should take time to celebrate this “ordinary woman” who is making history today.

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“None of the leaders of the woman suffrage movement were present”

Different from Ordinary Women

A Standing Woman

Patience, again

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