Once a week, come rain or shine, a group of Mothers gathers in a Buenos Aires square and walks. They wear white handkerchiefs tied to their heads, with names sewn onto them. 

Today marks the 46th anniversary of their first demonstration on April 30, 1977. On that Saturday the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Spanish) first got together at the square which would give them their name. Since then, they have returned demanding to know the fate of their disappeared children 2,392 times. 

Their first meeting, as they recall, was meant to be a standing protest to ask for information about their sons and daughters, who had vanished without a trace. But, since meetings of two or more people were banned under the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, authorities told them they couldn’t just stand there. That’s when they started to walk around in circles in the Plaza de Mayo, a large square laid before the Casa Rosada government palace in downtown Buenos Aires. 

The women wore white headscarves — made from the cloth diapers of their disappeared children — and carried photographs of their missing loved ones, and their demonstration quickly gained attention from the media and the public. This initial gathering would set the stage for what would become a powerful movement of women who refused to remain silent in the face of violence, and who fought for the right to know the truth about their children’s fate. Their struggle continued even after the detention and disappearance of three of their founders in December 1977: Azucena Villaflor, Esther Ballestrino, and María Ponce de Bianco

Their marches turned into a fixed date every Thursday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. They never stopped, except during the pandemic. As they still need to demand to know what happened to their children, and they invite activists and advocates from various movements to talk about other human rights and political causes: worker’s struggles, access to justice, freedom of expression, and police brutality. 

Some of them, like Hebe de Bonafini (who passed away last year), Nora Cortiñas, and Taty Almeida, have become symbols of resistance and hope for movements across the world. The Mothers shaped and helped organize others looking for their missing children elsewhere. Saharan women searching for their disappeared young members and families of the 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students in Mexico have been reunited and supported by them, among many others.

Once called “the ‘crazies’ of Plaza de Mayo” by the military, the Mothers and their relevance to the memory, truth, and justice process in Argentina are today acknowledged by the state and civil society. 

The Mothers and the Herald

In 1977, as silence and fear coated social life in Argentina, The Buenos Aires Herald was one of the few media outlets that reported on the forced disappearances denounced by families and friends of those who went missing. The Mothers, as well as the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, would visit the Herald’s newsroom to tell their story and provide information for its reporters to write about what was otherwise completely made invisible. 

The following ad, from La Prensa newspaper’s archive, was published in 1979. It’s addressed to Robert Cox, who was the newspaper’s director. The ad was signed by the Abuelas of Plaza de Mayo after learning that Cox was forced into exile from Argentina due to threats from the military. 

“Robert Cox, the worthy journalist, man of integrity,” it says. “Thank you for being one of the very, very few journalists who, through his work, understood our pain and made us feel less alone.”