Red, Blue, and Brady

67: The Million Mom March: Continuing its Legacy 20 Years Later

May 14, 2020 Brady
Red, Blue, and Brady
67: The Million Mom March: Continuing its Legacy 20 Years Later
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Show Notes Transcript

20 years ago, on May 14, 2000, downtown Washington D.C. watched as the Million Mom March became the largest non-violent protest in the history of the National Mall, birthplace of many of the nation's greatest political demonstrations. Over 750,000 people, the majority of them women, came together on that Sunday to call for the end of gun violence, and across the country many thousands more gathered in smaller — but no less spirited — groups, bringing the total number of participants into seven figures and making the Million Mom March true to its name.

In the 20 years since, Marchers have carried across the country the torch of activism they lit that Sunday afternoon as they stood, unified and purposeful, in the shadow of the nation's monuments to its greatest people and events, and wherever the Marchers have brought that torch — to counties, to states, to the halls of Congress — they have helped bring to pass gun safety laws ensuring that tomorrow will be safer than today.

In 2001, the Million Mom March merged with Brady, and the work the Marchers began continued to grow and be realized as they labored alongside Jim and Sarah Brady's activists to end the public health epidemic that is gun violence. The two groups became one, and as one they worked tirelessly to reduce — from 21 to zero — the number of children and adults shot each day in American cities and towns.

In this episode celebrating the 20th anniversary of the March, our host JJ welcomes three women to the show who are each as knowledgeable about gun violence prevention as they are committed to its ideals: Kris Brown, Brady's president, who was a participant of the Million Mom March; Dana Sanchez-Quist, a member of the Brady State Executive Committee; Shikha Hamilton, Brady National Chapter Organizing and Chapter Development Manager; and Donna Dees-Thomases, visionary founder of the Million Mom March and the dream of a safer future that it continues to represent.

Mentioned in this podcast:

the 20th Anniversary of the Million Mom March (Brady)
the Legacy of the Million Mom March (Medium)
Five Awake Documentary (Hollywood Reporter)
ASK to End Family Fire (Brady)

For more information on Brady, follow us on social @Bradybuzz, or via our website at

Support the show

For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.

Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.
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Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

JJ:

Hey everybody. This is the legal disclaimer, where we tell you that the views, thoughts, and opinions shared on this podcast belong solely to our guests and hosts and not necessarily Brady or ratings affiliates. Please note this podcast contains discussions of violence that some people may find disturbing, it's okay. We find it disturbing too.

Speaker 2:

[inaudible].

JJ:

So today we have another really special legacy episode where we're covering some of the history that got Brady and the gun violence prevention movement to where it is now. In particular, we're talking about the 750,000 plus people who showed up for the Million Mom March at the National Mall in D.C. and around the country. All of whom were gathering for a really important call to action, which was to end gun violence. In the 20 years, since that march, Million Mom Marchers across the country have carried the torch of activism of civic, engagement of passion and kindness. And they've done so much to help pass gun safety laws in the local community, states and in the halls of Congress. Now today, of course, I'm really excited to be talking to some of these moms, but rather than have me introduce them, I think it's actually better to let the women speak for themselves. So you three, is there anyone who wants to volunteer to be first?

Donna:

This is Donna. I'll go first. I'm the founder of the Million Mom March.

Kris:

I'm Kris Brown. I'm the president of Brady. And I am very proud that I participated with my mom in the Million Mom March that, uh, z created and founded and inspired.

Dana:

Um, my name is Dana Sanchez-Quist and I have been involved, I got involved on, um, labor day weekend, 1999, and helped on the organizing of the March.

Shika:

My name is Shika Hamilton, and I'm a proud original organizer of the Million Mom March from Detroit, Michigan. And now I currently live in California and I'm an organizing manager on staff at Brady.

JJ:

And it's so good. I feel like I'm surrounded by all of these strong, powerful yet exceptionally kind women. So this is a really exciting podcast for me. So I think we have to talk about, you know, why all of us are here, which I don't think we can do without a little bit of backstory. So Donna, I want to start with you. Can you talk to our listeners, I know you're going to have to be brief about it, but tell our listeners what prompted you to begin the Million Mom March? What was the Million Mom March? And, you know, can you take us through your journey?

Donna:

Sure. Well, it was August 10th, 1999, typical vacation day on Fire Island. I was with my daughters who were four and five years old. That summer they had also gone to a JCC day camp in New Jersey and never would I dream that suddenly I would be frightened that they would be targets from a white supremacist on that day, a white supremacist stormed the JCC day camp at Granada Hills, California. He opened fire on the little campers and fortunately none of the kids died, but they suffered great injuries including a 16 year old day camp counselor. And my world changed at that moment. At the time I was a part time publicist for Late Show with David Letterman. I felt like, you know, I have time to do something serious, like volunteer, to do PR for a gun violence prevention organization. And, uh, and really the only one I knew of and could actually get through to was, was called Handgun Control, Inc. then, but for the purpose of this podcast, I'm calling it by its since rebranded names since 2001, the Brady organization. So I called Brady, and I said I want to volunteer. And it was very hard to volunteer at that particular moment because Congress had just a few weeks before failed to close the gun show loophole that was exposed when Columbine happened. That's how those shooters got their guns through, through a loophole. And so there was a lot of discouragement and basically I was told, but we still tell people Call your Congressman. And I was embarrassed that I hadn't actually called my Congressman at all since becoming a mother. And, you know, I knew the number by heart because I had worked on Capitol Hill for four years, right out of college. So I know the importance of making your voice heard. And I even understood the importance when like five women would sit out in our reception area. Five women used to terrify my boss, who was Senator Russell Long. He thought five women sitting out in reception area meant 5,000 women were right behind them. So I am going to tell you a secret JJ. I wrote a book. So I have a lot more detail about how the whole name of March came together.

JJ:

And it's a great book.

Donna:

Thank you. But I left out as a little secret and I know I've told a lot of people about, so you're not the first person I'm telling, but I think it was the first time on a broadcast. My goal was never to really get a million moms. My goal was to get five moms in every congressional district in this country, but to organize the 2,175 person march just didn't sound that interesting. So because I'm a PR person, Million Mom March a little bit more pizazz, but I thought, okay, Million Mom March, million is a metaphor you know, for a lot of people. And so we launched it on labor day. When I say we, I got all my friends who I'd worked with, I'd worked at CBS news for several years. I've worked in different, you know, different places that media mavens. And they helped me put together, you know, logos, slogans, a press release. And we launched on labor day. I was actually shocked on how newsworthy they considered a Million Mom March on Mother's Day. It was nine months from the day I applied for the permit on August 17th to Mother's Day May 14th. We were, the headlines wrote themselves. You know, it takes nine months to make a baby nine months to make a march. You know, maybe can we get congressmen to pass laws to protect those babies? When I was on television, I said, here's my web address. Email me, let me know if you're interested. And two of my most favorite people in the beginning who emailed me and I had already had like a hundred moms already involved, sort of in the New York city area. But again, I was looking for five moms in every congressional district, a woman by the name of Renee in Kentucky wrote me. And I hit the jackpot with Renee because she's like my Congressman and this is his name. And he voted against the gun show loophole and I want to do something and she could write beautifully. I'm like, wow. So we signed up Renee. And then one of my other favorite moms emailed me and she was like the triple threat. She was in Florida. And we know how important Florida is always to presidential elections. She told me, she wrote to me that she was a Spanish speaker. And then she, she wrote, she gave me this information in the email and I'm a registered Republican. I thought, wow, great. Because I know media is going to ask, is this bi-partisan? I'm like, yes. Now I have Dana Sanchez-Quist. So I believe you have Dana on this broadcast too who can explain why she wrote to me.

Dana:

Yes. Well that, that labor day morning I am, uh, feeding my toddler in my kitchen and watching, uh, one of the morning shows. And I see these women talking about a march and I had, we had just gotten through Columbine earlier in the year. And I was mortified a s I started to learn what a mess our gun l aws were, and I'm watching this. And I, I said to my, at the moment I was married, and I mentioned it to my husband. And I said, you know, i f I'm g oing t o find out, if there's a group forming down here to go up to D.C. for this march, that this woman is organizing and I emailed. And the one that comes back c himed back was Donna. And she said to me, we need somebody to organize it because from down in Florida, because I don't have anybody in Florida yet, would you be willing to handle the seven states in the Southeast? I mean, I took a day to think about it because I had been a little bit involved in politics back home in Puerto Rico, but I knew that this was, I could smell it, that this was going to be a huge, huge job. And I responded back to Donna and I just, we started organizing.

Donna:

Dana asked me what my plan was to organize a million people. And really my only plan was to find five moms in every congressional district. And I had to admit to her, I didn't really have a plan. And so Dana put together our first Million Mom March plan on how to organize a meeting, how to create flyers. We were as grassroots as you could possibly get. Even though we were professional people, we had never done anything like this before.

Dana:

And people were doing, doing all kinds of different things. I mean, because they were really, truly, most of them had never been involved in organizing. And some of them were especially in the South, which is what I was dealing with. They were using pseudonyms. Some of them, their husbands and family and friends didn't even know they were organizing. It was, to me, it was unbelievable the courage of so many of these women that were in very unfriendly areas regarding this issue. I mean, there were women whose homes got shot at when people find out that they were organizing. It was terrifying.

JJ:

Well, hopefully on a less scary note, she got, can you tell our audience about how you got involved?

Shika:

Well, my story's a little different than Dana's I was a stay at home mom. I was an attorney by trade, but I was staying home because my daughter was recovering from whooping cough. She was 16 days in the ICU. And every night I used to watch the ER department and people coming in with gunshot wounds. And I kept thinking to myself, I'm sitting here trying to save my daughter from something I couldn't even prevent. And there must be something that could be done about these people coming in. So I emailed to join up and within minutes I got a response saying, come to our meeting in Gross Point. Now Gross Point is very different than Detroit, but I was originally from California so it was no biggie for me to go to Gross Point. So I went to my first meeting and I will never forget the women there were so incredibly smart and they knew so much about the issue. I knew nothing. I felt like an idiot sitting there. So I said, well, I'm going to help these women lick envelopes. They're good women. And that's about all I'll do because I didn't even know what the NRA was or stood for. But then it was maybe two weeks or a month after I joined that a six year old named Kayla Roland in Mount Morris, Michigan was killed by another six year old at their elementary school. I was so devastated by that news that I called the largest Detroit radio station at prime time hour and said, if anybody wants to do something about this issue, call me. And I gave out my phone number. I can't even describe to you that moment. When I gave out my phone number and email, and it turned into a full time volunteer gig. I became the Detroit coordinator. And I just kind of had no choice at that point because I had already given out my email and phone number. It was organic.

JJ:

And that's a really bold thing to do to give out your phone number.

Shika:

I was so upset. It was really just my grief over this child.

Donna:

What was kind of startling to me about that. Uh, first of all, Kayla Roland look a lot like my six year old daughter. And so I think we were all kind of struck by that shooting. And similarly, you know, shame on me. It wasn't until kids at a JCC day camp were shot at, did I get involved. Cause like the kids looked like my kids. Um, but it really wasn't wasn't long before I was starting to meet, um, mothers in the Bronx and Newark who were like, where have you been? We need you. But Kayla Roland hit me very hard too. And I remember that day, I remember exactly where I was and I got a call from Connie Rucker. She was the volunteer coordinator for the Brady organization in 1999. And I have to tell you if there's an unsung hero in this gun violence prevention movement, it is Connie Rucker. She said, Sarah Brady wanted me to call you. She was very sick. She was diagnosed with cancer. She's getting inundated with radio requests about the Kayla Roland shooting. Can you take these calls for her? And you know, I'm really not broadcast I'm much better behind the scenes kind of person. But I remember, Oh my gosh, it was, you don't say no to Connie. And so I called in, they said, Oh no, we've got some Million Mom Marchers lined up already. And I'm like you do? And I thought that is when I knew we had, we're making it as a movement. When now women, I did not know who Sheikha Hamilton was at this point. You know, I got to know her pretty quickly after, and then I got a call from the Detroit free press about a quote about the Michigan office for the Million Mom March. And I'm like we have a Michigan office? And it was actually a payphone outside the ladies room at an army munitions plant. Okay. Oh my gosh, this is a, this is, it was too funny. It was a sad story, but I'm like, Oh my God, that's our Michigan state office, a payphone outside of the ladies room. So we were making it now. I mean, people knew who we were. And even though I was only organizing the 2275 person march, I really thought, I think we might, we might get 50 or 60,000 people. You know, these women are organizing.

JJ:

And Kris, I wonder since you were someone who was in attendance, but weren't, you know, toggling that line of being, of being one of the planners and one of the participants, I'm wondering if you can share maybe what the day of the march was like for you, what the march and all of the satellite marches that happened, what those inspired in you?

Kris:

Well, at the time I had been, or was graduating from Virginia Tech and I decided to drive up from Blacksburg for the event because it was something that was talked about and discussed quite a bit on the news. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. And frankly, like all of the commentary we've heard, obviously had been watching the news was aware and familiar with the horror of the shooting of Kayla Roland. It was on the news. And she was, you know, this really sort of angelic looking six year old child shot by another classmate. And it was horrific. The backdrop of all of it that's been discussed was, was on my mind. But it's not something that I frankly had given a lot of thought to before deciding to drive up and participate. Mainly because I felt like, well, this is an opportunity to actually be present and just have my presence signify how important I think this issue is to the future of our country as a younger person. Plus my mom had asked me to come, but none of us knew quite what to expect. And for me it was, I guess, in a sense of political awakening, even though I grew up in a fairly political household, but this was beyond that this was the harnessing of actual everyday people from all walks of life to come together and what I viewed as in a sense, my hometown, right? Cause I grew up just outside of Washington, D.C. And I'd never seen anything like it. I mean, up until that point, there wasn't anything like it. And there were, you know, national figures on the stage talking about this particular issue in a way that frankly it hadn't ever been discussed that way. And for me, I think as a younger person at the time, it really left an impression about the power of girls and women raising their voices around an issue. Right? This was something that had been put together with moms taking action. Now, to be clear, there were dads there too. There were boys there, there were people of all races and genders there, but it wasn't lost on me that it was organized and launched by women, by moms who were making a difference. And I think for a lot of people my age and younger people, but it really gave me a sense of agency of the idea, well, I can make a difference in this world and I can try to, because I can here. And it did make a difference. I mean, we obviously know that in terms of policy, but it gave a lot of agency to individuals to feel like it's important to lift up your voice. And there's something very, very powerful in doing it and having sort of the community esprit de corps of all of these people coming together and deciding that they're going to make a change on something. I mean, it's the essence of democracy. So it was an amazing and life affirming experience.

Donna:

Well, it was, you know, I don't even remember the last month too much. Thank goodness I kept copious notes. It just started to really escalate to where it was almost out of control. Right after there was a shooting at the national zoo in D.C.We really started getting response from very conservative women who would identify themselves as such saying that they were gun owners, but they believed in licensing and registration and background checks. And that appearance just made people come to the issue I think so diverse. You know, we were used to, I think women, more progressive women taking these stands, but now we had really solid conservative women kind of getting behind it. Right after that we got the invitation to do Oprah. And that was a moment because we had now set up an office, a national office, Connie Rucker, we borrowed Connie Rucker from the Brady organization. So we need somebody to run this thing. Somebody who understands how to deal with volunteers, she deserves a profile and courage award for that role because she ran a tight ship of 50 people answering phones and giving out information about where to park buses and such. But I forgot to tell our web master people that I was doing Oprah and our website crashed because of the incoming calls and incoming emails and people wanting to join. So for the time the march was approaching that weekend, we had to up our permit request from 50,000 to a hundred thousand and that was getting pretty scary. And then I had to tell, go to the White House and actually tell president Clinton, he couldn't speak at our march because we couldn't afford the security. And we, we couldn't deal with the magnetometers that, you know, the, the metal detectors. So, you know, you asked me, well, how the day was, you know, it was really like weeks leading up to me was a world wind. And then nothing worse than having to tell the president United States that he cannot come to your march. I looked like hell every TV appearance, my hair in a ponytail I had on like overalls. I never had, I never had shoes that matched at any given point. Cause I was literally on the road. Plus I had a job working for Late Show with David Letterman and two little kids.

JJ:

I was going to say, because in the book you talk about how, you know, in the midst of dealing with the Clintons, you're like, and I've got to feed my children. So if someone can maybe make a buffet happen.

Donna:

I remember having to tell a volunteer, can you take me to like Payless shoes? I got, I need two matching sneakers. I had no shoes. I don't know how I packed, you know, on the way to Washington, it was, it was crazy times. But so instead of having the president and the first lady, which we would have loved to have had them on the mall, addressing the crowd, we just didn't have the money. Uh, you know, we were a very shoestring budget operation. And so, uh, so everything sort of changed the night before. And I had so little sleep. I was exhausted. We had just done like a town hall at the White House too. And then the morning of the Million Mom March, I am going to do, meet the press with Tim Russert. And I find out that I'm going to be debating Wayne LaPierre. And I said, okay, you know what? I know my soundbites, I know my talking points. And I do put the transcript in my book when I read the transcript, I feel fine, but I was a little over-caffeinated when I actually did that interview. So I never actually want to see it ever again because I was high pitched and very upset and very tired. And I was in no mood to deal with Wayne LaPierre and his foolishness. So we had a little debate and I kept telling people, you know, every time Wayne was like, we want to challenge you a million dollars, put a million dollars to our, what we're doing and on gun safety, I'm like, I don't think so. We are doing our own gun safety program called the Ask Campaign. And I kept giving weather reports during Meet the Press. It's a beautiful day, come on out to the mall. And, but the actual moment of the march, I remember getting out there and overwhelmed by the people, how many people were there. And I still tear up the number of parents, mothers, and fathers wearing t-shirts with their child on their tee shirts. Cause we were trying to do the mom and t-shirt must all be branded one thing. And I looked, I said, Oh, I can't believe I asked people to wear our branded T-shirt. No, this was so much more important. And I kept losing it. I kept crying throughout the day. Hundreds and hundreds of moms were coming out and talking about having their children's stolen from them by gun violence. So it was, it was pretty emotional. I just remember occasional some of the speakers. I remember when Kayla Roland's mom spoke and the Columbine moms spoke. And I think the one fun moment I had that day, cause it was very powerful. The, um, project manager came over to me and he said, look, we shouldn't really announce that we think we have about 750 to 850,000 people here. And we were way over what we had put on our permit. And he said that you can't tell, I went over and Rosie O'Donnell was standing there next to me. I said, look, we're not supposed to tell anybody, but we think we have, we might have actually have like seven hundred fifty thousand eight hundred thousand people here. I mean, I was like looking for like 2100 people at the beginning of this thing, just five moms in every congressional district. That's all I wanted. I would've been happy. So Rosie being Rosie, she was wonderful. She was wonderful to deal with. She was our Mistress of Ceremonies and she got up on the stage and she says, the NRA is going to say tomorrow that you were not here, but there's 750,000 people here. And the crowd roared, it was, it was an amazing moment. And then suddenly we were getting calls in from across the country. People started reporting and they felt a little bit of competition there. And they were like, we had 5,000 people on a rainy day in Oakland. They had 10,000 in Chicago, you know, five, 10,000 in Denver, 2000 in Tucson, another 5,000 here, another 5,000 there. So we really, we really believe we hit that 1 million mark by the end of that day.

JJ:

That's amazing. And I think that that hits it is that the March just wasn't one day it was a physical event, but it was all of these simultaneous events. And then all of the things that came from that initial march.

Donna:

Now, please know there were dozens of wonderful, hardworking gun violence prevention organizations that were already existence by the time of the march. But one thing that I was doing that they did not have time to do, I did not need to be a policy expert. I did not have to hire a policy expert. I would just refer people who had questions about policy to the Brady organization or the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, different state organizations, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. But what I did, I hired initially two database managers. So I just started collecting names in order to, you know, sort of fill out to make sure we had activists in every congressional district in this country. So I had the ability to think in a way that other organizations didn't have the time, really the patience or really the resources to do. They were doing. I mean, Kris, you know, this is a battle every day, every day, you're up against something new. And so I didn't have to deal with those battles. My battle was getting that database filled with new activists. So no, it was not a one day affair. And what I did was I promised every organization that was already in existence that signed up to organize a bus. We would triage names to that organization like New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, Ceasefire. There was a ceasefire Pennsylvania there was an organization in Maryland. So we would just triage our names out. So we helped build up their own grassroots. We never intended to be our own organization. You know, I had a great job, you know, part time for, you know, you know, publicizing stupid pet tricks. You know, you can't, you can't create a better job. And they paid me to do that. So I wasn't looking to start my own organization. And so the whole organization thing sort of happened by accident and that there was another organization that had started right after Columbine called the Bell Campaign. And Merely Black was the president of the organization. She had been working on the issue since 1995, since her son Matthew was killed. And, uh, she was a registered nurse, public health background. Her husband's a lawyer. And they had been working in Orange County, California, which is a very conservative district and they were getting stuff done. So she helped launch this new organization called the Bell Campaign. And they had on their board, a former president of mothers against drunk driving. And so they were trying to create a mothers against drunk driving for gun violence prevention. And so they were taking all of our names coming in. They were like our fiscal agent for the march, I mean every dollar I raised, they did the accounting to make sure everything was spent properly. And so, you know, all of those names, donors would go to the Bell Campaign, but four days after the march, May 18, they thought, you know, someone, I should write a whole book on May 18th. You know, first of all, you should not make any decisions when you're grieving or under stress. And there was a great example in that particular day of all the bad decisions made very quickly. We agreed, the Bell Campaign wanted to change their name. It was their decision to change it to the Million Mom March, which was fine, but we probably should have sat on that decision for a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months and figured how to do the branding properly. And so suddenly we became an organization four days later and we really did not have the resources in place. We were too big. We didn't have the infrastructure in place. By the time of Newtown, we had sort of lost our infrastructure. We were building up after the Million Mom March. And then, um, when we, one of our board members was in deep conversations with, uh, Michael Barnes who was president of Brady at the time. And Michael was very involved with Mothers Against Drunk Driving when he was a Congressman. So he really liked the whole concept of giving Brady, this grassroots arm, these chapters. And we, at the time we had about 236 chapters when we merged. So that is when we kind of became an organization. And we had policy people on board, political people on board, development people on board. So we sort of became a national office and the bell campaign chapters now called Million Mom March chapter sort of merged into Brady because we needed them and they needed us. We'd already been the grassroots force behind some bills that were getting passed. Governor Pataki, working with New Yorkers Against Gun Violence was working to package gun reform bills and he's Republican. And when we came along, he, you know, he was so thrilled because he was just constantly hearing from the other side. So we started to see, you know, bills getting passed and we knew he had something to do with it. We were working with great organizations.

JJ:

Well, and I think in the vein of talking about how this legacy continues. I'm wondering if maybe each of you can highlight some victories that came after the initial Million Mom March that our listeners might not know about. I mean, we're talking about 20 years of history here.

Shika:

Yeah. I mean, removing Spence Abraham from office was I think one of the most exciting things an incumbent and putting Debbie Stabenow in place at a time when we needed that voice, it was pretty exciting. And I think soon after that, that Christmas, I'll never forget the Michigan legislature passing in the middle of the night, um, a bill that would turn CCW into a shall issue state as opposed to a may issue you state. But then we turned around in the winter and did a referendum on it and we were able to stop it from becoming law after we received three hundred and 65,000 signatures, I believe.

Donna:

And, and, and then not through social media, right?

Shika:

No, we didn't have social media back then. We were out there in the cold in front of grocery stores and farmer's markets and all sorts of places.

JJ:

Yeah. Because this is grassroots in the time before Facebook, before Instagram. So I think, and for those of our listeners who are younger, I think it's a little bit hard to picture that of a time when you couldn't just necessarily hop on Google and find a local group, you actually had to like, a local group had to find you.

Donna:

And there wasn't Google, then either.

Shika:

I always tell people, I think we were the first march on the mall, the national mall organized by email. Yes. I mean, I think we, we were the first.

Donna:

There were a lot of our moms who did not have email. So we got a one 800 number and would stand outside on the Today Show with Al Roker with our phone number on there. So the moms who weren't on email could call us. And I had two moms from Short Hills, two grandmas that used to answer the phone and then they would just transcribe the callers and they would, they would just take delight in sort of describing some of the, um, the other side of the issue that they're very colorful, but bringing up what, what we were doing it. Cause I think the biggest frustration I have when people say, Oh, we marched 20 years ago and then nothing happened. Even after Newtown, after those 20 babies and six educators, nothing happened no a lot happened after Newtown and of course a lot happened after our march. Again, we got a lot of bills passed and in Michigan, you guys were doing really incredible grassroots organizing. It was, it was amazing to watch.

Shika:

Well. And we hit the Michigan militia, which I think everybody has seen during this COVID crisis, how they behave with these protests that are going on right now, we were dealing with the Michigan militia and fighting off bad gun bills. We may not have been passing the good gun bills, but we were stopping them in their tracks. And for example, one of them was the stand your ground law. I mean, this was back in 2005. I mean, and then we can't forget 2004 when we did another rally to renew the assault weapons ban.

Donna:

And I get so frustrated every time I hear people say, well, you know, not that many people get killed by mass shootings. And we really shouldn't focus on that. Well, the 10 years at that ban was in place, mass shootings were down. Yeah. And so, and they went back up, they went after the ban was not renewed. But I have to say when Newtown happened, I knew that there were so many of us that fought so hard to save that ban. And I watch now all the Brady chapters who continue to fight for it and Newtown Action Alliance is really the little giant in this movement that has been unrelenting. And trying to get that back on the vote in Congress. When Newtown happened, I knew I tried my best at that moment, but yes, when that ban expired, I took it personally. It was a personal failure, but I knew we did our best. I mean, you know, I look back at some of those photos of those postcards, that we slept in little red wagons all over Capitol Hill.

Dana:

Well, something I failed to mention earlier is that I have been the Spanish language spokesperson for the organization. And I mean, both Brady and Million Mom March for 20 years. And I had a big high in 2005, I mean, it took about a year when I was lobbying the Broward County school board and Broward County school district is I believe at that time it was the fourth largest in the country. And it had almost 300,000 students and I lobbied them the entire year. And that was after stand your ground had passed here after the assault weapons ban renewal had failed. And I was so intent on getting this done and mind you, Broward County is historically very progressive, very blue. And it took a year for me to get this, this literature that was the Ask Campaign. The asking saves kids is there a gun where your children play? Get this literature into every backpack of the Broward County school district. And, uh, amazingly enough, there were two elementary schools who would not accept the literature out of the, it was, I think it was 270 schools. So that was, to me, that was a big accomplishment, even though I wish I could have put that flyer once a month, every year, I think it should go into every kid in the country backpack so that the parents can look and be aware.

Shika:

I would say the highlight for me personally, um, or a personal accomplishment is I was approached by a group in Iowa that was working on closing the newspaper loophole. Newspapers across the country were allowing classified ads of selling guns and he asked me, the organizer asked me, could I approach the Detroit Free Press Detroit News? And we went to a meeting with the editor in chief of the Detroit Free Press and gave each of our different perspectives. And then in less than 24 hours, he personally called me and told me, nobody has ever come to us with this variety of group of people that you brought and you guys were so influential and we're going to stop selling guns in both our papers, the Free Press and the Detroit News. And to me, I felt like we just in that moment, because Michigan was so difficult to pass any good laws, we did something good for our state and our communities by stopping the sale of guns in the newspaper. So that was a big highlight for me personally.

JJ:

I think a good follow up to that maybe to pivot actually, to crass with, you know, what sort of changes did you see the Million Mom March bring about, or, you know, what did having this very female activists focused movement do to how activism was done?

Kris:

The importance of women leaders, I think is reflected in this entire discussion. If you listen to the back and forth, the conversation the credit that's given to so many others, the way that it was even put together, I think it's pretty profound for listeners to think about how you might put something together of this nature, with that many people participating., A Million people at the time and not have this thing we call the internet launch such an event. I mean the amount of organization that took was not reliant or dependent on a single individual. I mean, everything that Donna has said has been about, well, I called this person. I had a conversation. I called this woman in Florida, who was a Republican, who was a mom who was a Floridian. We all know how important that is. And her name is Daniel Sanchez-Quist she's on this call and look at all that she did. I think that that is emblematic of the best leaders. Not everyone can be called upon to be a leader like that. But you look at something and say, I'm ready to do something that gets me out of my comfort zone. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do it. I just know that it has to be done. So I'm setting this goal post as high as possible, and I'll find a way to get there. And it's relying on a lot of other people and understanding the strengths that some people have versus others. And, you know, relying on a lot of things that don't always easily come together. But if you can inspire and motivate others, if you build relationships, if collaboration and teamwork are important to you, if you're establishing stretch goals, like those things that I'm naming, that those have all been demonstrated in the discussions that we've had. I know they inspired me as someone who participated on that day. It's something that I've never forgot and it can inspire you that kind of teamwork and collaboration for many years to come. And I think it's something that's demonstrated certainly. And the fact that that happened, that it was such a success. And also in the way that it happened, that it was people, moms coming together, you know, forming alliances, really relying on one another and sharing the credit. This wasn't about a single person. This was about something beyond what any one person could accomplish, but collectively what could be accomplished together. And it remains an inspiration today for all of us who are in the movement.

JJ:

So I think in closing, we have to do what every grassroots organizer loves, which is we have to do a call to action and Donna as founder of the Million Mom March, and as an all around amazing person, you get founder privileges. You get to give us our call to action. What should it be?

Donna:

I think because of the circumstances right now with COVID-19 and the panic buying of guns, I am reluctant to ask anybody to do something that I'm not willing to do myself. So right now what I have been doing is every so often I live in Louisiana, someone told me they bought a gun, and they are a new gun owner. I use the opportunity to say, Hey, Fox news did this amazing five part series on gun safety in 2014. Do you want me to send you the links? And one of those Fox news segments is about the Ask Campaign and they talk about how it might feel awkward, but you know, if your child goes to play at a neighbor's house, and again, they're going to go back. When things go to normal, kids are going to be going to play at homes now with new gun owners. And so I send the link to the Fox News thing on the Ask Campaign. It's very easy to go to EndFamilyFire.org, and just learn about a few tips on safe storage. Because grandma and grandpa might have did a purchase that you don't know about it and send it around a little bit to your friends and family. That's something that's very easy to do, and has longterm positive effects.

JJ:

Those are so simple, but I think so important and really underlying what the Million Mom March seem to have always been about, which is forming these connections to save lives.

:

Thank you all so, so much.

JJ:

Thanks for listening as always Brady's lifesaving work in Congress, the courts and communities across the country is made possible thanks to you. For more information on Brady or how to get involved in the fight against gun violence, please like, and subscribe to the podcast. Get in touch with us at bradyunited.org or on social@BradyBuzz. Be brave and remember take action.

Speaker 2:

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