Three cheers for the Raging Grannies - raising their voices

Photo: Left-clicked Photobucket

The Statue of Liberty is a woman of a certain age who wears a hat and robe and stands on an island to proclaim freedom.

The Raging Grannies are women of a certain age who wear hats and little-old-lady shawls and stand on a traffic island to proclaim their freedom to protest war.

The Raging Grannies began in Victoria BC

The Raging Grannies began in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1987, when members of a street theater group rewrote familiar songs to get people thinking about wrongs and rights. Now the Greater Westerly group is one of about 60 “gaggles” in the United States, Canada and Europe, including one in Providence.

The U.S. Westerly’s Grannies have urged shoppers at the town’s pre-Christmas luminary stroll not to buy war toys, and have sung modified Christmas songs such as “Don’t rest you wealthy gentlefolk, there’s much cause for dismay.”

They have brought attention to flaws in the U.S. health-care system by singing “The old gray Granny, she ain’t what she used to be.”

Stein first heard of the Raging Grannies years ago, when her daughter climbed a tree for a protest in British Columbia and the Grannies sang to block the loggers. Stein was delighted to find a group active in Westerly; she had no idea the group had spread beyond Canada.

LINK: Raging Grannies International
LINK: Ottawa Raging Grannies
LINK: Wikepedia - Raging Grannies
LINK: Vancouver Raging Grannies