Women in Black to mark 4th anniversary of weekly Friday vigils

“We don’t come out in the rain, we’re too old,” Bricker, who started the Women in Black group in Chestertown, said in a recent interview.

Since early February 2018, the Women in Black have stood at the intersection of Cross Street and Memorial Plaza donning black “truth,” “peace” and “justice” signs with white lettering.

Women in Black is an international network for peace and justice, according to the business cards the women hand out. They seek to put an end to war and violence.

They wear black as a symbol of mourning for all victims of war, Bricker said.

Bricker had been a part of the weekly Women in Black “Vigil for Peace” in Towson. She began attending in 2003, before the Iraq War, and was a part of it every Friday until she moved to Kent County in 2008.

The Chestertown vigils started as part of an Advent program through Bricker’s church, where her study group was focused on “putting personal beliefs into action.”

“A ‘Women in Black’ Vigil for Peace was something I could do to ‘Save the World,’” Bricker wrote in a letter to the Kent County News.

The vigils have continued for four years because the Chestertown Women in Black want passersby to think about what those words mean for everyone.

Holt said in an email that their vigils are “not so much a protest but a reminder to the passersby of the core values that we all hold: peace, justice and a desire for no more war.”

She said the world is full of hate and violence, and holding the signs helps to keep the concepts in peoples’ minds.

“I always think if someone goes home after seeing this sign and pets their dog on the head, that’s fine,” Bricker said.

“That old town clock is our signal,” Kim said during an initial interview in mid-December. “We work until it strikes 1 (p.m.).”

“We’ve had some hot ones and some cold ones,” Bricker said, talking about the weather during their vigils over the last four years.

She recalled one particularly cold day when the owner of the White Swan Inn brought them tea and cookies.

The women are supposed to be silent during their hour-long vigil, “but we’re never silent,” Bricker said.

In a Jan. 30 email, Morley recalled being in Argentina in 2017 and seeing the vigils by “Women of the Plaza de Mayo” on Thursdays. She said they had been silently marching for more than 40 years “in protests of their lost sons.”

“In contrast, our ‘demonstration’ is certainly not a quiet one as we engage in greetings and recognition with drivers and people going by,” Morley wrote in the email. “I continue to appear every Friday in hopes that those seeing us might reflect, if even just for a moment, on the signs we hold of TRUTH, PEACE, NO MORE WAR and JUSTICE.”

In the last month alone, countless passersby have stopped to catch up with the women. Some thanked them for their “good work,” others honked or shouted “hello” from cars or across the street.

Kim joked that Bricker and Morley knew everyone.

At their most recent vigil on Jan. 28, the women invited a young person wearing a black hooded sweatshirt that said “freedom” to join them because the hoodie was in the spirit of their message.

Kim said she loves the reactions they get from people during their vigil, particularly when they beep or wave as they pass by.

She recalled when Bricker used to run up to motorists stopped at the traffic light to give them cards and show off the signs.

Bricker does not do that anymore.

While some of their tactics have changed over the years, Chestertown’s Women in Black have continued to show up each Friday at noon.

“I continue to Vigil for Peace every week because there continues to be anger, violence and a lack of peace in our community, country and world,” Bricker said in her handwritten letter to the Kent County News.

“This is something I can do,” she added.

“Sometimes it seems to me as if our Peace, Justice and Truth thoughts are like sending dandelion fluff into the wind,” Kim wrote in an email Sunday. “We hope these simple principles will arrive in the minds of our fellow citizens like tiny seeds, reminding them of what they already know and desire in their hearts.”

Anyone is welcome to join the Women in Black at their Friday vigils, regardless of gender. Black attire is not a requirement, according to Bricker.