Over fifty Mothers who lost children to police violence came to march on Washington DC on Mother’s Day weekend. They came to tell the Attorney General, they would no longer stand silent while police killed their unarmed children.

They marched down Pennsylvania Avenue with arms linked to deliver their demands for change to law enforcement to the Department of Justice.

They told the stories of their dearly departed children and why they had come to demand change in Washington. They spoke in the language of nostalgia–of memories of Mother’s Days past.

The Mothers carried their children’s pictures in frames, wore them on buttons and tee shirts, and pasted them to heart signs with gold and silver glitter.

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They said this shouldn’t ever happen again–not to another Mother-not this.

They called forth their children’s spirits, naming them one by one, as a bell chimed over the din of the circled crowd. All that was left for them was to remember so others couldn’t forget.

Then the scattering of herbs, invoking every faith-each was welcomed. There was tribute to each mother who had lost a son or daughter to police or vigilante violence.

How can a parent say goodbye to their child forever? It can’t be done.

Then they prayed together holding hands while others were singing, “We Shall Not Be Moved” but they were moving anyway. They were setting out to move a mountain, one grain at a time.

Change comes long and hard to a Nation set in its ways and bridled with a surly arrogance with scant courage to admit when it is wrong.

These women were patient and willing to see it through its transformation, though they were standing in the shadow of a great mountain before them, wondering: How do we move this?

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They carried their heavy burdens and their demands to the Department of Justice, delivering them to its doorstep. Ms. Maria Hamilton. the main organizer of the Million Mother’s March, and Mother to Dontre Hamilton, read the demands to Kevin Lewis, the Dept of Justice Press Secretary.

She asked him to deliver the demands to the Attorney General on all Mothers’ behalf. Among those demands were to appoint special prosecutors to investigate police killings of the unarmed, demilitarize police forces, and immediate investigations in cases where such killing occur.

She also left her business card and a warning she would be back next year.
“I will be back here every year to make sure that these police officers that are taking human life go to jail,” she told Mr. Lewis.