A Vigil to End the War in Ukraine: Working for Peace

By Judy Adams
WILPF Peninsula Palo Alto

April 2022

Our small Peninsula/Palo Alto, CA WILPF branch organizes silent sidewalk vigils at a busy intersection near the Stanford campus every Friday, from noon to 1. We planned to focus on Black History month in February, but on February 4, we made our major focus the war in Ukraine. Our weekly vigils are outside a large shopping center at lunch hour, with lots of restaurants, across from a local high school, facing an entrance to Stanford, and usually heavy traffic, pedestrians, and bicycles. All our hand-written signs are 2-sided, so they do double duty as we walk the sidewalks and cross at the corners. Drivers in both directions see a message, increasing our effect, even if we have a small number of protestors. We also posted flyers around the corner and in the nearby business district, urging peace in Ukraine. As the conflict escalated, we added other flyers and publicity to say “NO to NATO expansion.” We display WILPF’s message against nuclear weapons at all our vigils, with a QR code leading to the WILPF petition supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear weapons and flyers/handbills that some people take. Our vigils continued with the two themes through February. 

March came, and we continued with our small vigils but increased our presence every day from February 1 through the 7, not just Fridays, with volunteers from our coalition groups. One day a woman in full Ukraine flag colors (as I was), waving a large Ukraine flag as she joined the vigil, raised my spirits, and increased the supportive honks of the cars and bells from the passing bicycles. She was a Russian from Moscow, standing for peace with Ukraine. As we walked the corner together, she held her phone up as she spoke with friends in Russia who heard the honks for Peace from the traffic. Another day I was challenged by a man who asked if I was Ukrainian, and when I said no, he asked me how I was against Russia when America invaded Mexico, killed people, and took land for our own… and we did the same in Texas. I had to acknowledge that violence, but I said it must be “NO MORE!”

As we planned the March 6 Global Day of Action for Peace in Ukraine, we designed a flyer that we distributed around the community and listed on calendars and with our coalition of peace and justice activists. Our first sponsor was the local Raging Action Grannies, and they agreed to our silent vigil at our usual corner. They usually performed songs with re-written lyrics but they hadn’t been singing since COVID. This time, they stood together in their traditional costumes, “speaking” through their signs, joined to our astonishment, on the 6th, with more than 130 plus other vigilers who answered the call for peace and the call for nuclear disarmament. We also demonstrated in support of WILPF’s national partner, the Poor Peoples Campaign, against poverty, racism, and militarism that was devastating Ukraine. We also worked with our faith community, Multifaith Voices for Peace & Justice, who followed our noon vigil with their evening vigil, with many returning to the same corner where they demonstrated at noon with us– adding more signs and refreshed energies.

We ended with prayers for peace. The peace community rose to the call for peace. What started with a few WILPF members standing on the sidewalk every week turned into the combined assembly of over 260 people peacefully assembled that day and evening, and some have returned on our Fridays.

To view more pictures of the March 6 vigil, click here. 

Can we change the course of the war? We will persevere. As we continue our work for peace and justice as WILPFers and partners with the Poor People’s Campaign, we seek instruction and inspiration in these times. We began April by joining our nearest sister branch in San Jose. We organized an April 4 community reading by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” (April 4th, 1967), exactly one year before he was assassinated. The challenge we face now, as then, is how to “wage peace.” The reading by community members will be recorded, edited, and then made available on the San Jose WILPF YouTube channel soon after the readings. Our gratitude to Rowan Fairgrove of the San Jose branch for her contributions to our partnership.