The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, left, of Northampton turns to talk with Bonner McAllester of Monterey during a standout in front of L3Harris Technologies in Northampton in memory of the late activist Frances Crowe on Monday, March 15, 2021, which would have been her 102nd birthday. The photo on Ayvazian’s sign was taken by Ayvazian’s late mother, Gloria Ayvazian, a friend and neighbor of Crowe’s.
The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, left, of Northampton turns to talk with Bonner McAllester of Monterey during a standout in front of L3Harris Technologies in Northampton in memory of the late activist Frances Crowe on Monday, March 15, 2021, which would have been her 102nd birthday. The photo on Ayvazian’s sign was taken by Ayvazian’s late mother, Gloria Ayvazian, a friend and neighbor of Crowe’s. Credit: STAFF PHOTO/KEVIN GUTTING

NORTHAMPTON – About 50 people gathered in front of L3Harris Technologies in Northampton for a standout “for peace, justice and sustainability” in memory of Frances Crowe on Monday, which would have been the late activist’s 102nd birthday. Co-organizers Miranda Groux, of the Resistance Center for Peace and Justice, and Claudia Lefko, who met Crowe in 1998, brought boxes of signs that were created for Crowe’s 100th birthday celebration and parade in 2019. Monday’s standout, in subfreezing temps, was originally imagined as several laundry lines airing a “laundry list” of individual concerns put on signs and hung between pairs of posts but the wind was so strong that the signs would not stay put so everyone picked a sign to hold onto.

Kevin Gutting can be reached at kgutting@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @KevinGutting.