Stories of activists inspire Palo Alto exhibit

by Judy Adams, Peninsula Branch exhibit committee member.

The Peninsula Branch (begun in 1922) is reaching out to new generations with its WILPF Centennial exhibit and grand opening event in a Palo Alto, CA, library November 14-December 24. Oral histories dating from 1979 onward were the start.

Why an educational exhibit and video when action is critical; how can they move people to action? Our goal is to educate and inspire others to work for peaceful change through WILPF, with its century of research and action.

The Women's Peace Oral History Project (WPOHP), started with one interview in 1979 with our branch member Lygia Callejo, who faithfully staffed the local Peace Center office for years.  The project grew, with generous support from JAPA's funding in 1985 for WILPF's 70th anniversary, peace history classes taught at Stanford and San Jose State, involvement of other local San Francisco Bay Area branches, and volunteers from US branches – in all, interviews with 90 women were conducted and preserved.

Our exhibit will showcase some of these stories and educate about the rich history of WILPF as an agent for involvement and peaceful change.  There is something that a single person can do, when linked with others in an international organization to back that action up.

 The materials and interviews collected by the WPOHP, were donated to Stanford University's Archive of Recorded Sound and on WILPF's 100th anniversary, Stanford announced that the audio of the interviews could be streamed or downloaded from a Stanford site. .

Armed with materials from this collection, including early scrapbooks during our branch's founding 93 years ago, and a wealth of photographs, our committee began research for the exhibit.  We expanded the research to major photo archives at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, the photograph collections at the Library of Congress, WILPF's own webpages and Peace & Freedom issues, photos from our local Historical Society, among other sources. An exhausting project, but one that gave us a respect for WILPF and a desire to educate others about the power of women to work for peace. Dare we try to end war through education as well as action on the “front lines” of protest?

 Our project, an exhibit on the history, goals and accomplishments of WILPF, and completion of a digitized version of a 1983 slide show originally presented to our branch as a “report” of the ongoing interviews, seeks to inform and inspire our community to work for peace and to make the connection between funding for human needs projects vs military spending.

Encouraged by funding from a 2015 WILPF mini-grant, were able to complete our project, which will be showcased at an opening event Nov. 12 at a local library. The exhibit will have a high profile during its six weeks installation.  We hope to create community awareness of peace and justice issues and of the goals and principles of WILPF.  We hope to increase our active membership and re-energize our branch, giving our activities a higher profile.

 The exhibit is highly visual with many photos and text about WILPF’s founding, and our own branch’s history and activities, including our Raging Grannies’ use of songs to entertain and “teach peace.”  We have a map highlighting International WILPF branches and their activities, and a WILPF timeline.  Using photos, posters, maps, and a colorful branch banner, we are enlivening the lobby of a major library in our city, and hope to educate and inspire library patrons, students and others, to work for the goals of WILPF and join our branch in forming coalitions to strengthen peace and justice efforts. We hope to “travel” the exhibit and video presentation to schools, churches and our branch libraries, and libraries in neighboring cities, to gently raise awareness of issues, and to encourage people to work for peace and justice.

We are using WILPF's 2015 slogan, "Women's Power to Stop War" as our exhibit's title, and the video uses another WILPF slogan from the ‘80s for its title, "Listen to Women for a Change," to acknowledge and celebrate the change that the women of WILPF have wrought on the world's struggle for peace and justice.

Although our project comes at the end of WILPF’s 100th year, we look forward to the future, and the importance of our work of the next 100 years.  We hope to attract new members to strengthen our branch, whose “shining hour” was during the Vietnam War, when the power of protest and united action brought an end to that war. Despite a century of conflict and violence in the world, we still have hope; we believe in community peace education and the strength of WILPF’s support to help us each discover “Women’s Power to End War,” and not give up despite overwhelming odds.

In acknowledgement of our efforts, the city of Palo Alto has issued a proclamation that Armistice Day, November 11th in 2015, be declared "Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Day." The proclamation will be read at our exhibit’s opening, November 12.

Among those working to create the exhibit and event are Cherrill Spencer, Cybele LoVuolo-Bhushan, Lois Salo and other volunteers.

Top photo: Grandmothers’ March in Palo Alto, CA, 1968 during the Vietnam War. WILPF members in the front, from left.: Mary Clarke, Helen Hildreth, then far right, Anne Peabody Brown, branch president.  Photographer unknown.

Inset photo: Branch member Esther Newill in picket line at Lawrence Livermore National Lab protest, California, (‘80s?) photographer unknown