Sitting here in New York, I think back to three mothers of children killed by police in the 1990s. They are the precursor to the movement we witness today. They are Iris Baez, mother of Anthony Baez; Kadiatou Diallo, mother of Amadou Diallo; and Doris Busch Boskey, mother of Gary Busch.

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They told their stories in a film titled Every Mother’s Son.

It was Iris Baez, who had become a veteran activist since Anthony’s death in 1994, who approached Amadou’s mother, Kadiatou, and Gary’s mother, Doris, after their sons were killed. As a Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx, a West African woman who relocated to New York, and a Jewish woman from Long Island, they made an unlikely team. But together they formed a powerful collective voice on behalf of all victims of police violence. The grassroots movement they inspired in New York is challenging the militarization of law enforcement and the erosion of constitutional protections. Whenever police kill someone under suspicious circumstances, the mothers assemble to help the family deal with its grief and to seek the truth and accountability. The mothers have also become advocates for police reforms, including better training and more citizen oversight, and have connected to a larger national movement against police brutality.

Their stories were documented by Tami Gold and Kelly Anderson. In an interview about the making of the film, Gold said:

Mothers speak a kind of universal language. Some viewers might not believe that these young men were killed for no reason, but if they had to go through the experience with another mother, they could identify. But we realized that viewers might think that a mother would always say her child was innocent. We had to elaborate on the mothers’ stories and bring in other voices. We had to work away from the tears and focus on how the mothers chose to fight the blue wall of silence, to fight the injustice, and to stand up not just for their sons but for the reform of a flawed system. Through this tragedy, which so many face, families and women became schooled and self-educated in the legal system. They are now at the forefront of these issues, talking about democracy, reform and policing. They now have to be at the table. They know the system.

If you live in or near New York City or plan to visit, take a trip to 22 E 2nd St on the Lower East SIde of Manhattan to see this mural.

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This is from an article titled, “New York City Mural Honors Mothers Who Lost Sons to Police Violence.”

New York City visual artist Sophia Dawson decided to pay her respects to black and Latino mothers who lost their sons to police and extra-judicial violence. In a new mural called "Every Mother's Son" on the Lower East Side, Dawson honors Kadiatou Diallou, Mamie Till, Constance Malcolm, Margarita Rosario, Gwen Carr, Lesley McSpadden and Iris Baez.

Across the ocean, in Nigeria, there are mothers who wait each day for the return of their daughters. I look at a photo of Martha Mark, holding a picture of her daughter Monica Mark, kidnapped by Boko Haram from Chibok two years ago, and my eyes fill with tears as my mind is flooded with anger that those girls and others stolen away by terrorists are still missing.

Nigeria marks 2nd anniversary of Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping — April 14, 2016

On this Mother’s Day, let us not forget them. Despite the fact the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag started by women in Nigeria has been tweeted and retweeted millions of times, and the Nigerian Army’s efforts searching in the Sambisa forest, none of the girls have been rescued.

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Not everyone has forgotten, as evidenced by this article titled, “Broadway show 'Eclipsed' honours missing 'Chibok girls.’”

The Broadway show ‘Eclipsed’ was dedicated to Nigeria’s missing Chibok girls on Saturday by award winning actress Lupita Nyongo and U2’s front man Bono. During the performance in New York about several women trapped in Liberia during the Civil War, the two celebrities remembered the 219 missing schoolgirls who were abducted by Nigeria’s Islamist group Boko Haram over two years ago. “In our story, ‘Eclipsed,’ we witness the power of naming, the power of naming your pain, naming your joy, naming yourself. The simple act of declaring a name can make a public issue very personal,” said Nyong’o.

Going back in time, I remember another group of mothers in Argentina.

On April 30, 1977, Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti and a dozen other mothers gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina’s capitol city to demand justice for their children, who had been “disappeared” by the military junta during the Dirty War period – a reign of terror that would last from 1976 to 1983, backed by the CIA. A tense atmosphere of fear pervaded the years of the military regime in Argentina. Opposition was not tolerated; tens of thousands of people were simply “disappeared.” Only some of the bodies would be found. More than 250 children were taken from mothers in prison camps, or from those who were disappeared, and put up for adoption. The demonstrations of the Mothers of the Disappeared clearly took extreme courage. They started small in size, but within a year, hundreds of women were participating in the weekly demonstrations. They carried signs with photos of their sons and daughters. The regime tried to discredit them by calling the women, “las locas,” the madwomen. … Mothers of the Disappeared movements and organizations have formed in Chile and Mexico, as well as inspired the Saturday Mothers in Turkey, the Mourning Mothers and Mothers of Khavaran in Iran, the Committee of Mothers of Disappeared Migrants in Honduras, the Comadres in El Salvador, and the Tiananmen Mothers in China. Across the world, wherever sons and daughters go missing, mothers rise up to demand justice.

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo became the subject of a documentary by filmmakers Susana Munoz and Lourdes Portillo, which premiered August 2, 1988.

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About the film:

During the late 1970s, tens of thousands of men, women and even children were abducted by the right-wing military government in Argentina. While most of the population was terrorized by these actions, a small group of mothers of the disappeared began staging weekly demonstrations to demand that their children be released and the kidnappers be brought to justice. This is the dramatic story of their courageous struggle, which ultimately served as a catalyst for the toppling of the dictatorship. Las Madres has won multiple awards at film festivals around the world and was nominated for an Oscar.

The white scarf of the Mothers, painted on the ground in Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires

One of the many tragedies around this movement was that several founding mothers were also disappeared and murdered.

On December 8, 1977, the Mothers – Esther Ballestrino de Careaga and Maria Eugenia Ponce de Bianco – were forcefully taken, along with eight others, by military officials as they were attending a meeting at the Santa Cruz Church in Buenos Aires. Azucena Villaflor, another founding Mother, was also kidnapped outside her home just days later.

It wasn’t until years later that their remains were identified.

In 2005, through detailed forensic investigations of skeletal remains, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), was able to use DNA and forensic evidence to identify four of the washed-up bodies. It was decided without any doubt. The bodies belonged to three of the founding Mothers – Azucena Villaflor, Maria Eugenia Ponce and Esther Careaga, along with the French nun, Léonie Duquet. “The remains of the four women are thought to have been thrown into the ocean from Air Force planes. The bodies washed out on the shore in 1977 and were buried as “N.N.” (unknowns) in the General Lavalle municipal cemetery, province of Buenos Aires,” a 2006 Annual EAAF Report explained. “EAAF exhumed the four women from General Lavalle cemetery and identified them based on anthropological and genetic analysis.” … Twenty-eight years after the founding Mothers themselves ‘disappeared,’ on December 8, 2005, the remains of Azucena Villaflor, Maria Ponce de Bianco and Esther Ballestrino de Careaga were cremated and their ashes buried in honor at Buenos Aires, Plaza de Mayo.

Going back a bit further in time, I honor the women of the Black Sash.

The Black Sash was a hugely significant, non-violent white women's resistance organization founded on 19 May 1955 in South Africa by Jean Sinclair, Ruth Foley, Elizabeth McLaren, Tertia Pybus, Jean Bosazza, and Helen Newton-Thompson. The Black Sash initially campaigned against the removal of Coloured or mixed race voters from the voters' roll in the Cape Province by the National Party government. As the apartheid system began to reach into every aspect of South African life, Black Sash members demonstrated against the Pass Laws and the introduction of other apartheid legislation. Its members "used the relative safety of their privileged racial classification to speak out against the erosion of human rights in the country. Their striking black sashes were worn as a mark of mourning and to protest against the succession of unjust laws. But they were not only on the streets. Volunteers spent many hours in the national network of advice offices and in the monitoring of courts and pass offices." (Speech by Marcella Naidoo, National Director of the Black Sash, June 2005) Between 1955 and 1994, the Black Sash provided widespread and visible proof of white resistance towards the apartheid system. Its members worked as volunteer advocates to families affected by apartheid laws; held regular street demonstrations; spoke at political meetings; brought cases of injustice to the attention of their Members of Parliament, and kept vigils outside Parliament and government offices. Many members were vilified within their local white communities, and it was not unusual for women wearing the black sash to be physically attacked by supporters of apartheid. The Black Sash's resistance movement came to an end in the early 1990s with the end of apartheid, the unbanning of the ANC and the release of Nelson Mandela from imprisonment. Its role was recognised by Nelson Mandela on his release and by subsequent political leaders. The organisation was reformed in 1995 as a non-racial humanitarian organisation, working to 'make human rights real for all living in South Africa'.

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Today, while honoring the women who gave birth and life to you, take time out to think of all the mothers worldwide who are fighting for their children, and figure out what you can do to make a difference.