FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 7, 2026

Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected] 

CODEPINK Bay Area Announces 20th Annual Mother's Day Golden Gate Bridge Walk for Peace 

SAN FRANCISCO — CODEPINK Bay Area will host its 20th Annual Mother's Day Golden Gate Bridge Walk for Peace on Sunday, May 10, 2026, from 12:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. The event aims to honor mothers worldwide and advocate for global peace. 

Participants will gather at 11:45 a.m. in the Welcome Plaza at the San Francisco end of the eastern walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge. The schedule includes a public reading of Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation, a flash mob dance to "War, What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing!", a walk to the bridge's midpoint for a standing vigil, and will conclude with a rally featuring speakers, poetry, and music.

History of Mother’s Day:

Mother’s Day began in America in 1870, when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation in response to the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. She called on women to use their roles as mothers and wives to fight for an end to all wars—protesting the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons.

Howe wrote: “Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

The holiday gained traction years later when a West Virginia women’s group led by Anna Reeves Jarvis promoted it to reunite families after the Civil War. After her death, Anna’s daughter campaigned for an official Mother’s Day for peace, and in 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed it into law as a national observance.

This year, amid war, genocide, and deadly sieges worldwide, CODEPINK chapters are heeding Julia’s call by bringing together grandmothers, mothers, daughters, aunts, children, and all who oppose militarism, violence, war, occupation, genocide, and hate.

This year's walk is dedicated to Renay Davis, a long-time peace activist and lifetime Bay Area CODEPINK organizer. 

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