On April 30, 1977, Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti was accompanied by a dozen other mothers to the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina's capital city. The women came from many backgrounds, but they had one universally shared experience: each had at least one child who had been disappeared by the military government. Together they made the decision to protest. The location they zeroed in on was just across the street from the presidential office building, la Casa Rosada   (the Pink House). In choosing this location the mothers utilized their visibility as a means to gain information on and hopefully recover their children. While they held weekly marches, the mothers also began an international campaign to defy the propaganda distributed by the military regime. This campaign brought the attention of the world to Argentina.

The Mothers' association was made up of women who had met each other while trying to find their missing sons and daughters. Many of the disappeared were believed to have been abducted by agents of the Argentine government during the years known as the Dirty War(1976-1983); the "disappeared" were often tortured and killed before their bodies were disposed of in rural areas or unmarked graves. The original founders of the group were Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti, Berta Braverman, Haydée García Buelas; Amria Adela Gard de Antokoletz, Julia, María Mercedes and Cándida Gard (four sisters); Delicia González, Pepa Noia, Mirta Baravalle, Kety Neuhaus, Raquel Arcushin, and Senora De Caimi.

In the years of the military regime, citizens were highly fearful of attracting the government's attention. Opposition was not tolerated; those opposing the government were made to go away. Just a year after the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo was created, hundreds of women were participating, gathering in the Plaza for weekly demonstrations. They found strength in each other by marching in public, and even attracted some press. They made signs with photos of their children and publicized their children's names. The government tried to marginalize and trivialize their work by calling them "las locas" (the madwomen).

As the number of disappeared grew, the movement grew, and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo gained international attention during the years of the Dirty War. Their intrepid bravery inspired other Mother's of Disappeared Children protest movements in Chile, Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Honduras, El Salvador and China. Across the world, wherever sons and daughters go missing, mothers rise up to demand justice. 

 Painter Sophia Dawson has partnered with the Ideal Glass art collective and a team of assistants in New York City to produce the mural, "Every Mother's Son," a powerful tribute to black and Latino women who have lost their sons to racial violence in the U.S.