JUST INSIDE THE DOOR
Jordan, June
JUST INSIDE THE DOOR June Jordan Not a Good Girl She's not thirteen. She learned a long time ago that you improve a messed-up situation by inventing your own rules. She runs on champion stamina...
...She would find out about police violence or foreign-policy deceit before most of the rest of us made our morning cup of coffee...
...When I first met Vivian, she was a young mother with a long braid of dark hair down her back, and two little girls she brought to just about all the protest demonstrations that sustained her own idealistic excitement...
...This group witnessed the effect of the Israeli bombing throughout southern Lebanon and...
...MADRE's address is 121 W. 27 St...
...the United Nations to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which would secure equal rights for women in all fields: political, economic, social, cultural, and civil...
...Then, in 199?, there was the inauguration of "Klinik FANM," the first women's clinic in Port-au-Prince, a resource made possible by MADRE donors...
...The second tour responded to the crisis for women in the former Yugoslavia, and called for: •the U.N...
...Vivian Stromberg...
...In addition, MADRE donated $97,000 worth of milk for Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was distributed by UNICEF to all in need, be they Muslim or Serb or Croat...
...And it is galvanized and guided by an amazing peace warrior...
...She forgets nothing...
...She runs on champion stamina and the well-directed energies of an infuriated fighter...
...in 1996...
...Kathy's founding board of twelve included Vivian Stromberg and me...
...MADRE purchased ten tons of milk and medicine for Iraqi civilians who were suffering from our sanctions against their country...
...She has rescued many thousands of women and children from starvation, abuse, penury, and the brutality of no medical care...
...We—she and I—go back to Fidel Castro throwing fried chicken bones off the terrace of his Hotel Theresa suite in Harlem...
...And when Vivian found out about something corrupt and revolting, she always went into ferocious first gear: organizing the willing and the lazy into some decent show of concern and public condemnation...
...Vivian arranged for these emergency supplies to travel via a giant truck caravan, from Amman to Baghdad...
...MADRE's political, life-sustaining work is an amazing achievement...
...Kuwait, Turkey, Western Europe, and the United States in a coast-to-coast speakout against the Gulf war: '"Bring Our Sons and Daughters Home Now...
...She became a compelling, regular speaker at the rallies she helped to organize...
...the enforcement of women's rights by international bodies...
...Vivian Stromberg became full-time executive director of MADRE...
...She complained all the time, and she worked against the reasons for her aggravation...
...From the beginning, she was full of conviction, and obdurate, and completely impatient with apathetic anything...
...Emboldened by the passionate success of this tour...
...peacekeeping camp at Oana...
...301, New York, NY 10001, (212) 627-0444...
...In 1990, when she retired from teaching public school in the South Bronx...
...War Crimes Tribunal to try all war crimes against women, including rape and forced pregnancy...
...They deserve our national thanks and our very personal support...
...She forgives nothing...
...This extraordinary convoy managed to arrive in Baghdad exactly one year to the day after the onslaught of our allied bombardment...
...the U.N...
...She knew Castro was way better than Batista...
...She hated racist or hypocritical Americans...
...And...
...She became a formidable adversary and an invaluable advocate...
...She wore out the grunt routines of fliers and phone calls and fliers and phone calls...
...MADRE was able to arrange for the delivery of $143,500 of emergency medical aid...
...She wanted to stop the war against Vietnam...
...And, on the International Olympic Scoreboard for a do-right, free-style, heavy-hitting, marathon leader, she'd find herself with very little competition, anywhere...
...Since that characteristically useful first mission, MADRE has become a 20,000-member...
...the third Mother Courage tour flew a U.S...
...human-rights delegation to Lebanon...
...She became pivotal to New York City politics, and she earned various designations, such as "touchstone," "spark," "whip," and "spine...
...She loved Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Richie Havens, and crowds of people singing songs...
...You get the idea...
...She puts her body on the line whenever her mouth says "No...
...She sets things up so she can win...
...Iraq...
...She is not a good girl...
...multiracial, national women's organization that has raised more than $6 million for medical and education services for women and children in Central America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia, and the U.S.A...
...June Jordan, (he poet, is professor of African-American Studies at the University of California-Berkeley...
...MADRE's first delegation delivered one ton of baby cereal and powdered milk to Nicaragua...
...The first of these ventures combined women from Egypt, Israel, the Occupied Territories of Palestine...
...Her name is Vivian Stromberg...
...Hell, we go back before that...
...World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, held in June of 1993, to include the rights of women as human rights...
...She got tired but she never quit...
...MADRE and Vivian Stromberg will mitigate desperate need with a shipment of shoes, a new ambulance, industrial looms, antibiotics, textbooks, or rice, beans, corn, and flour...
...If it's humanly possible...
...in particular, the devastation of the U.N...
...In 1983, the poet Kathy Engel founded MADRE, whose motto is: "Joining hands and hearts with women and children for peace and for justice...
...Since then, she has conceived and conducted three "Mother Courage Peace Tours...
Vol. 60 • October 1996 • No. 10
