Room for a View > Profile in Peace
Women in Black:
Portrait of a Peace Movement
by Cassady Casey; photo by Lorna Tychostup

Black is the color that we wear;
Black, the color that speaks our anger.
Silence is the language that we speak;
Silence, a language that voices our anguish.

—From a brochure circulated at the Fourth
World Conference on Women, Beijing, 1995.

It’s a cold Saturday afternoon on a busy corner of Main Street in the heart of downtown New Paltz. Cars and people constantly pass by a group of women donned in black from head to toe, standing silently in front of the village library. Two of the women hold a banner that says, “Women in Black for Peace and Justice,” with a dove and women’s insignia on it. A spokesperson hands out flyers and peacefully explains their position and her openness to engage in a dialogue. Afternoon shoppers stop in their tracks. The sight of the mournfully-clad women leaves passersby visibly unnerved. Some are afraid to look, others take a flyer, and some come back asking questions. Very few harass, some take pictures, and many give thanks. A family or two has been known to stand with them.

It is the weekly vigil of Women in Black.

The same thing happens in London, Belgrade, Jerusalem, and many other parts of the world, at regular times and intervals. Groups of women wearing the color of grieving gather to bear witness to war and grieve for the victims on all sides.

“We dress in black to show our sympathy with the victims of violence,” says Janice Williamson, a wib activist in Edmonton, Canada. Edmonton’s wib are mostly middle-aged; some are grandmothers. Many have never been politically involved prior to the September 11 attacks and the war in Afghanistan. For some women, the wib movement provides a focus without, as one member put it, “having to stand up, be political, and shout dogma.”

Beginnings
The network of Women in Black has no manifesto, figurehead, or constitution. They first emerged in 1988, a month after the beginning of the first Palestinian intifada. A small group of Jewish women from Jerusalem decided to launch a simple protest to express their belief in peace and demand that Israel end its occupation of Palestinian lands. Dressed entirely in black, 15 Israeli women stood in silence at a major intersection in Jerusalem, holding signs that read “Stop the Occupation.” Although they were staging a peaceful vigil to symbolize the suffering and tragedy of both Israelis and Palestinians, their presence provoked a powerful reaction from motorists, who spat on them, called them names, and accused them of “mourning the Palestinian enemy.” Determined, the women began to hold their vigil once a week at the same hour and in the same location. Soon Palestinian women joined them.

“It was a simple form of protest that women could do easily,” said an activist later in the newsletter of the Israeli group Bat Shalom (Daughters of Peace). “We didn’t have to get to the big city, we could bring our children, there was no chanting or marching, and the medium was the message.” The idea spread quickly and spontaneously by word of mouth to other places in Israel, eventually inspiring 40 Women in Black groups.

Soon after that first vigil in Jerusalem, the Israeli women heard of “solidarity vigils” gaining momentum in other countries. Initial reports came from the United States and Canada, then from Europe and Australia. By 1990, wib vigils had sprung across the globe protesting against local issues, some of which had nothing to do with the Israeli occupation. In Italy, wib initially protested the occupation, then expanded their protest to include organized crime-related violence. Groups sprang up in Germany demonstrating against neo-Nazism, racism directed at migrant workers, and nuclear arms.

War Zone Vigils
In war-torn former Yugoslavia in the fall of 1991, a more overtly political Women in Black movement arose in Belgrade. In their initial public statement the activists defined themselves as an anti-nationalist, anti-militarist, feminist, and pacifist group. What made this group so different was that they were forcefully putting their feelings out in the street and crossing ethnic lines in the middle of a war zone where it was dangerous for them to speak what they believed. “We wanted to be clearly understood,” they wrote later. “That what we were doing was our political choice, a radical criticism of the patriarchal, militarist regime, and a nonviolent act of resistance to policies that destroy cities, kill people, and annihilate human relations.”

The Belgrade group organized more than 400 demonstrations and was one of the earliest ongoing public voices against the Milosevic regime. Consistent with their mission they also supported and participated in the grassroots democracy movement. In 1997, as Serbian aggression escalated in Kosovo, they and other pro-democracy and human rights groups organized a rally against the violence in that beleaguered state. Ten minutes before it began the government banned the rally and issued threats to Women in Black and other groups.

For more than seven years wib held weekly vigils in Belgrade’s Republic Square to protest the war, the regime’s policies of nationalist aggression, and the systematic rape of thousands of women. They were questioned by the police, called “Albanian whores,” egged, threatened physically, and risked being jailed. During the summers they held international meetings in Belgrade and those attending were interrogated at the borders. Just before the fall of the Milosevic regime, the women were forced to stop their weekly vigils, and went into hiding after the government raided their flat. But for almost 10 years, Belgrade’s Women in Black spoke out against repression, showed the world what inter-ethnic cooperation looked like, and risked their lives working for peace and human rights.

Gaining Notoriety
A sign of their rising influence came last year when Women in Black was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In March 2001, the Belgrade branch of wib was awarded the Millennium Peace Prize for Women from the UN Development Fund for Women. Yet former Yugoslav President Milosevic branded them “dangerous allies of America,” and Serbia’s deputy prime minister referred to them as “Serbia’s inner enemies.” In the United States the fbi labeled them potential terrorists for protesting the cycle of violence and revenge in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

In Jerusalem, where wib began 15 years ago, they still hold a vigil every week near the prime minister’s official residence to protest the occupation. The responses, both hostile and sympathetic, are getting sharper. Insults and even physical violence occur frequently. According to Laura Handel, a member of an Israeli wib group, slurs are laced with sexual innuendo or target protester’s families: “Why don’t you sleep with Arafat?” “I hope your children all die.” Recently, four men jumped out of a van, threw a woman down to the ground, and destroyed her sign. Although the wib do say that more and more passersby honk and wave in sympathy. The protesters see this as a sign of widening Israeli impatience with the occupation and the Sharon administration’s policies. Late in August, the administration attempted to suppress the weekly vigil, insisting that it alternate with a right wing, pro-occupation demonstration. At this writing, wib are still negotiating with the Jerusalem police.

Women In Black in the Mid-Hudson Valley
Woodstock resident Jane Toby is responsible for bringing Women in Black to the Mid-Hudson Valley. Last year, wib sent out an international call to stand in vigil with other women’s groups against the devastation caused by the Israeli occupation for one day in June. Toby wrote a letter to the editor of the Woodstock Times saying that she would be standing on the Woodstock Green on the specified date and welcomed others to join. Having been active with Women in Black in Verona, Italy for six years, Toby stood by herself with signs and thought about those women. She wasn’t sure if anybody was going to show up. Thirteen people soon appeared. One was 90 years old. Shortly thereafter, a core group began talking about what they wanted to become. Now they can be seen standing on the Woodstock Green every Sunday.

Soon after September 11, two other groups sprung up in the region—one in Kingston, organized by Kingston resident Constance Rudd. The other in New Paltz is currently organized by Kerhonkson resident Barbara Upton. Each group has core members who show up at every vigil. They are usually joined by others who have heard about the group through their literature, public television, articles (like this one), or by word of mouth.

“We hold a big banner with the words ‘No Attack on Iraq,’” says Upton. “Once a young man stuck his head out of a car and said, ‘Yeah, bomb Iraq!’ People have given us the finger, told us to get a job. I think at first people didn’t understand us or know what we were about and thought we were threatening.”

Noting the challenges of the anti-war public vigils after September 11, Toby adds, “It seems incredulous to me that working for peace would be a ‘subversive’ activity. What we’re doing is essentially humane and so needed.”

“Yes,” claims Upton. “Most people are very supportive now. We’re lucky in New Paltz. It’s a college town. People wave their hands, honk, give the peace sign, take us out to coffee. Every once in a while you talk with someone and then they stand with you.”

“It’s like lighting a match and the fire catches,” says Toby, who has also been involved in helping to organize several events such as October’s suny New Paltz Women’s Studies Conference “Women and War, Peace and Revolution,” where wib hosted one of the conference seminars showing films and discussing how to activate peace.

The Mid-Hudson Valley wib groups helped organize a concert last March whose proceeds went to Afghan women through the help of the international women’s rights organizations Madre and rawa (Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan). Mid-Hudson wib also put together the highly successful October 26 “Not in Our Name” rally and march in Kingston, which was attended by 2,000 people.

On this year’s anniversary of September 11, feeling a need to be more visible, the Woodstock group stood on an I-87 overpass holding a large banner with the words “Peace Not War.” “So many cars honked in agreement with our sentiments,” says Toby, who believes it’s a sign that “more people have become aware of the need to activate peace.”

Many of the women participating in the Mid-Hudson Valley wib groups are in their thirties, forties, and fifties and have never demonstrated before, but were looking for ways to voice their opposition. Others have been active in demonstrating for peace at various points in their lives. “I’ve always been involved in the movement in a small way, but the times reactivated my involvement,” says Upton. “Different times call for different techniques and ways of communicating. We are a bridge to bring people over to our side.”

The Woodstock group is thinking about planning a National Women in Black Conference and plotting different venues for their vigils. Toby is interested in holding vigils in front of military installations, weapons factories, and even at West Point’s graduation ceremony. “We plan to stand in other places. However, Women in Black facilitates women in walking out of their homes and being able to stand in the town square. That will remain the same.”

The New Paltz group is talking about holding workshops sometime in the future. But for now, because they are new, they are focusing on holding their corner in front of the village library.

“Over 22 anti-war vigils are happening in the Mid-Hudson Valley,” says Upton. “If we’re representative of the country then we’re talking about hundreds of thousands going out,” Upton said.

Come rain, shine, or snow, Women in Black will be holding their vigils throughout the winter. If you’re interested in getting involved, more information, or learning how to form a Women in Black group in your area, contact one of the following:

• Kingston Women in Black: Saturday vigil, 10:30-11:30am at the main post office on Cornell Street. E-mail: wibkingston@yahoo.com.

• New Paltz Women in Black: Saturday vigil, 12:30-1:30pm at the Elting Library on Main Street. E-mail: wibnp@hotmail.com.

• Woodstock Women in Black: Sunday vigil, 2:30-3:30pm on Woodstock Green. E-mail: Woodstockwib@aol.com.

For more information on Women in Black, visit www.womeninblack.net.

Why Women?
“Women are often at the receiving end of gendered violence in both peace and war, and women are the majority of refugees. A feminist view sees masculine cultures as especially prone to violence, and so feminist women tend to have a particular perspective on security and something unique to say about war.

“In mixed actions of men and women, women’s voices are often drowned out. When we act alone two things are different. First, women’s voice is really heard and that’s important even when we’re saying the same thing as male peace activists. Secondly, sometimes even peace demonstrations get violent, and as women alone we can choose forms of action we feel comfortable with—nonviolent and expressive.” —London Women in Black

—Edited by Lorna Tychostup

Cassady Casey lives in Brooklyn, and currently works for Teach For America. She has written for the New York-based magazine the Nonviolent Activist, and the Atlanta-based newspaper, Hospitality.