Issue 12
Granny Rebels
By Ian Sattler and Ian SattlerIllustration By Brandon Breaux
What’s wrong with the kids in America? We’re engaged in a war that every poll says the majority of our citizens disagree with and yet our college campuses are mostly silent. No serious protests to be found— nary a lousy sit-in. Things keep getting worse overseas and the main demographic being affected by the conflict are content to sit in their dorm rooms updating their MySpace pages. The fact that American college students have the right to protest makes the whole situation even more puzzling. If the country is unhappy with the way things are, who will protest if not the youth? Well if you are looking for resistance, skip the college campus. Instead, try the retirement home.
In June of 2006, a group of 11 women ranging in age from 65 to 91 entered the military recruitment office on North Broad Street in Philadelphia, PA. They offered up a homemade apple pie and politely requested to enlist. “Send us to Iraq, we’ve lived our lives. We don’t want our grandsons and our granddaughters to go to Iraq, and we don’t want any young people to go to Iraq to be cannon fodder and to be killed,” they pleaded.
The army and the marines refused them, of course. But the grannies were persistent. They refused to leave. After five hours of arguing, the paddy wagons came and arrested them. One of the arrestees was 91- year-old Lillian, who was in a wheelchair.
Once the grannies were arrested, they were allowed to leave without any cuffs. “Not even the plastic kind,” said a disappointed 67-year-old granny Nina Huizinga. One spokesperson claims that the grannies spent much of their time detained “going back and forth to the bathroom. They only had one bathroom.” They were given a trial date six months later—and the lowest possible charge, which was eventually dismissed. But their mission was successful: “We got front page coverage on the city newspaper,” Huizinga said.
After the recruitment office arrest, the grannies have gained much publicity in Philadelphia. Now a group of 231 women, they spend most of their time petitioning outside of subway stations, singing silly songs in costumes at various retirement centers and demonstrating in Rittenhouse Square. “People have been attracted to us because we’ve been successful. We’re also having fun doing it, so why not join us?” asks Huizinga.
The Granny Peace Brigade is proof that activists do no fade away, for many of them have past experience with anti-Vietnam protesting. “These women have had their entire lives of organizing around peace issues. These women know how to deal with the media; they know about demonstrations; they know about flyers, they know about leafleting, they know about banners, OK? They know about humor and the use of costumes and all that stuff,” says Huizinga. One granny, Gertrude Cooperman, spent much of her adult life as a physician giving illegal abortions before Roe vs. Wade was passed. And their mission is personal—one of the granny’s grandsons was the first Pennsylvanian to die in Iraq.
So let this be a lesson: It’s never too late to get active and protest. At the very least you can manage to stop being outdone by a group of elderly women.