Dear John,

Twenty years ago on International Women’s Day, 10,000 women marched from MLK Jr. Park to the White House to find it encircled and blocked by police. Alice Walker was able to persuade an officer who opened a space for the women to enter the lockdown. Walker stated:

"The best substitute for war is intelligence, and we have it . . . and we have good hearts…We have to believe we have good hearts, that we don't have to murder to change minds."

That day, Walker was arrested, with many other women soon to follow.

Join CODEPINK in the streets for International Women's Day: Women and Working People of the World Say No to War!

In 2003, fellow protestors including nuclear disarmament activist Helen Caldicott, carried a barrage of signs reading, “Diplomacy, not bombs” and “War is extremely costly, but peace is priceless.” 

Now, after $21 trillion taxpayer dollars were stolen to kill over 1.5 million people in endless wars, it is beyond time to stand in the face of this extraction, destruction and oppression and say no more. 

The global peace movement finds itself at a critical moment. Do we feel the sense of urgency in the face of nuclear war? Do we have the courage to put aside our decades of fatigue and brokenness to demand an end to the killing? We mobilized the largest anti-war demonstrations in history under President Bush. Now our leaders are inching us closer to nuclear armageddon with Russia over Ukraine and stoking a war with China.  

Now is not the time to dust our hands off and say we’ve done enough because we were in the streets twenty years ago. Now is the time to lock arms on the brink of WW3 and decide for ourselves we deserve a hell of a lot better than what we are getting. The people of the world deserve life, abundance, love, and peace! 

Join our international letter from women and our allies calling on President Biden to push for negotiations!

Wherever you are in the world, the global movement for peace needs you to be in action, whatever that looks like to you. If you can organize a protest, organize a protest. If you can have some friends over to celebrate IWD and join us for our online actions, please do!

Many people have asked us what happened to the peace movement over the last twenty years. Some of us got old, but some of us were just being born into a world becoming more and more uninhabitable and violent. The peace movement can be stronger than it was when we took to the streets 20 years ago if we want it to be and if we put in the effort. In the face of nuclear war, will you be in the streets on IWD? Will you bring your friends and neighbors? We will, and that is our commitment to you as CODEPINK.

Towards Peace,
The Whole CODEPINK Team