Between Us – International Women’s Day

By Rev. Clyde Grubbs, March 8, 2024

March 8th is International Women’s Day, a day of commemoration and celebration that was born in the USA and is celebrated in many countries with big parades and rallies.

It began in New York City on March 8, 1857, when female garment workers protested unfair working conditions and unequal rights for women. News of the demonstration spread and within a few years March 8th strikes were an annual event in North America and Europe. Today it is a world event, the United States is an exception.

This year we at First Parish celebrated International Women’s Day by inviting the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute to share their inspiring work with us. Our service March 3rd featured our guest speaker, Alexandra Chéry-Dorrelus, Co-Executive Director of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. Alexandra is the daughter of Chaplain Clementina (Tina) Chéry, founder of the Peace Institute, who lost her 15-year-old son Louis to gun violence in 1993. As a woman and a mother, Tina protested this loss of her son by walking the streets of Dorchester on Mother’s Day.

The Mother’s Day Walk, now a walk from Dorchester to Boston’s City Hall, is entering its 27th year and has inspired a deep grassroots movement to address the violence experienced by too many of our Boston area young people, as well as gun violence nationwide. They’ve engaged not only in direct service care with families in the aftermath of homicide; they also have become an advocacy and educational center with national respect.

May we know the rising of the women is the rising of human beings.