History Blog
WRL Goes to the Movies
Popular films aren’t usually known for promoting peace. There’s a lot of focus on big action sequences in the wide release movies that studios hope will become summer blockbusters, especially when superheroes are involved. In 1987 and 2007, two WRL Peace Calendars sought to highlight movies that promote peace and justice. WRL’s interest in movies…Home Is Where WRL Is: A History of WRL’s Offices: The Peace Pentagon and Beyond (Part II)
After leaving 5 Beekman Street with a very light load—courtesy of the FBI theft—WRL and its peace group mates moved to 339 Lafayette Street at the western edge of the East Village. (For the story of WRL’s pre-Lafayette Street homes, see Home Is Where WRL Is: A History of WRL’s Offices, Part I: From a…
Home Is Where WRL Is: A History of WRL’s Office Spaces: From a Living Room to a Loft (Part I)
In our 100 year history, the WRL national office, surprisingly, has had only a few locations in New York City. Each was unique in its own way.WRL was first located in Jessie Wallace Hughan’s apartment. The founder of WRL, she brought into the fold activists from a variety of progressive organizations. Soon there were too…
War Is a Crime Against Humanity: Stop the Violence Immediately in Israel-Palestine
October 7th, One Year OnOne year ago today, a new phase in the generations-long conflict in Palestine began. A brutal assault by Hamas fighters from the occupied Gaza strip, killing hundreds of people and taking many hostage, has been met with a year, and counting, of genocidal violence from Israel against Palestinians in Gaza, as…Learn About Our Radical Past Through Larry Gara’s Radical Quizzes
Between 1989 and 2002, Larry Gara produced four “radical quizzes” for WRL’s Nonviolent Activist to encourage everyone to learn about our radical past. The first, “A Radical Quiz,” was published in the September 1989 issue. Gara, a professor at Wilmington College in Ohio, a WWII resister, and a long-time WRL member, wrote an introduction for…WRL’s Debate to Hire Bayard Rustin
Not much time goes by in political discourse without some mention of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place 61 years ago this week. It was the largest gathering for civil rights of its time, with an estimated 250,000 people attending. Martin Luther King, Jr. made his “I Have a Dream”…WRL’s Anarchist-Socialist Softball Games
When I was growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, the War Resisters League would have their National Committee meetings hosted by a different local group every summer. Always a WRL local affiliate, it meant that we got to go somewhere else around the country. As a kid, these meetings ended up feeling like vacations….WRL Exhibit on Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Nuclear Terror
In 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum unveiled a radically scaled back exhibition that glorified the bombings, prominently presenting Enola Gay (the Hiroshima bomber) as if it were a holy relic. The original draft text of the exhibit had been an even-handed history and evaluation of the August 6 and 9, 1945 bombings. But caving to howls of the American Legion and conservative members of Congress, the Smithsonian deleted all criticisms of the bombings and presented a sanitized version without graphic images of the destruction. Instead, they highlighted how the plane was restored, showed photos of machinery, interviews of the Enola Gay crew, and stressed how “the bombings were necessary” to save American lives. Consequently, WRL with other peace groups formed the Enola Gay Action Coalition to prepare for protests at the opening, as well as to create our own exhibit “Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 50 Years of Nuclear Terror”—as an answer to the Smithsonian’s crude attempt at censorship and historical revisionism….“USA-USSR Disarm!”: Telling It to the Nuclear Powers on Both Sides of the World
On September 4, 1978 WRL members launched simultaneous disarmament demonstrations on the White House Lawn in Washington, DC and in Red Square in Moscow, USSR. This creative—and maybe rash—action was the brainchild of WRL staffers, notably Jerry Coffin and Lynne Shatzkin Coffin.I was honored to be tasked to lead the Washington contingent. (See Steve Sumerford’s blog…A Chance Acquaintance Changes a Life
It was a few minutes before midnight on August 27, 1963, when I arrived by train from my home in Scarsdale, NY, at the 125th Street train station in New York City and walked half a dozen blocks to the Harlem office of the Congress of Racial Equality, known as “CORE,” with a ticket to board…Anti-Draft CD, a Policeman Named Ray, and Oranges on a Mahogany Table
During the Vietnam War era, between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. military drafted 2.2 million men out of an eligible pool of 27 million. Of those, 16.3 percent were Black. Of Vietnam combat troops, 23 percent were Black. Indeed, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to the Vietnam War as a white man’s war, a…July 4, 1976: The July 4th Coalition Highlights American Revolution’s Unfinished Business
WRL’S Continental Walk took place during the U.S. bicentennial year. WRL was also active with the anti-establishment July 4th Coalition, which highlighted the American Revolution’s unfinished business to create a just and equal society. More than 30 organizations made up the Coalition, and 40,000 joined the march and rally in Philadelphia, led by Native Americans…Spring 1972: Blockades by the Bay and the June 10th New Jersey Action
In Spring 1972 People’s Blockades sprang up around the country. Their goal was to prevent munitions from leaving U.S. ports for Vietnam.One target of the blockade was Earle Naval Ammunitions Depot, located in New Jersey on Sandy Hook Bay, with multiple types of actions involving several pacifist organizations and more than a hundred activists. Residents…How Can You Portray 100 Years of Resistance to War?
How can you portray 100 years of nonviolent resistance to war and the causes of war? If you’re the 100-year-old War Resisters League, you create a traveling exhibit and book based on the exhibit chock-full of photos and stories reflecting that century of activism. Arnie Alpert gives a taste of the book and exhibit and…Salaam Shalom Solh: 2008 WRL Calendar Stories Remain Exemplary Even After 16 Years
The 2008 War Resisters League calendar, Salaam, Shalom, Solh: Nonviolence and Resistance in the Middle East and Beyond stands out for me as one of the most substantial pieces of activist literature that I’ve helped to create. More than an event program or handout, I had to compile enough stories for 52 weekly entries.The calendar…#Refuse War – International CO Day
Where there is war, there are also people who bravely and conscientiously refuse to participate. That is true in the Ukraine, in Israel, in the US, and around the globe. International Conscientious Objectors Day, observed on the 15th of May, is a time to promote the right of conscientious objection and to support those who…Campus Protests: Echoes from 1970
As students demonstrate in support of Palestine and a ceasefire in Gaza on university campuses across the U.S. and beyond, this week’s WRL 100th History blog looks back at the student actions of May 1970. On May 1, student strikes broke out around the country following Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and grew after the May…The 1971 May Day Actions
With the slogan “If the government won’t stop the war [in Vietnam], we’ll stop the government,” the largest mass arrests in U.S. history – 13,500 – occurred in May 1971 as hundreds of autonomous affinity groups from around the country converged on Washington, DC.On May 1, a couple days before the action, more than 50,000…A Day on Park Avenue and a Luxury Suite in the Waldorf Astoria 1972
It’s been more than 50 years, but I still remember the ITT demonstration as one of the most creative and dramatic WRL actions of that furiously turbulent time in the antiwar movement.It was also one of the most fun.My family and I lived on Staten Island at the time, and I was charged with the…Timeless Tax Day Readings
April 20, 1971To the Editor of the Boston Globe:For thirty years, as religious pacifists and advocates of the way of love and nonviolence in all human relationships, my husband and I have been active in the search for peace. It is, therefore, with special dismay that we watch the increase in lawlessness and violence in…Sharing WRL Stories: What is Yours?
Last fall, when the WRL 100th Anniversary committee asked me to write a letter about WRL’s 100th Anniversary projects, I had no idea how many friends of mine have been active with WRL over the years. Then email messages started coming to me from friends across the U.S. who were excited to see my picture…WRL Peace Calendars Featuring Children’s Voices and Thoughts
I write this overview of the WRL peace calendars focused on young people as tens of thousands of them are now facing the horrors of war. Thus, some of the children’s personal statements in the calendars have a heartbreaking immediacy. Still, through descriptions of support, service, resistance projects, and individual actions undertaken by an impressive…WRL Volunteers: Mid Century
WRL never had enough staff to accomplish all its work, so volunteers regularly contributed time and skills. When it was founded in 1923, the volunteers were mainly well-educated and financially-comfortable women who had known each other previously from peace activities to end World War I. In the World War II era, when men involved with…The WRL Pie Chart
Today, March 14, is Pi Day (3.14), which brings to mind WRL’s annual pie chart. With millions of copies distributed, it is the most disseminated piece of literature in WRL’s history, reaching far beyond its membership to emphasize — obvious to many* beyond peace circles — that it’s military spending and war that bloats federal…WRL Peace Calendars Featuring Women’s Voices, Art, and Activism
With the second wave of feminism gaining wide acceptance by social change organizations, WRL leaders decided that it, at last, needed to codify the accomplishments of pacifist women. Thus the organization’s 1972 peace calendar, In Woman’s Soul, whose title was taken from Emma Goldman’s pronouncement that women’s emancipation begins in their soul, was devoted to the writings and artwork of…February 29: A Night Out of Time
What a line-up at WRL’s A Night Out of Time party and benefit on February 29, 1996. The night featured poets and Fugs founders Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg; authors Quentin Crisp, Barbara Garson, Norman Rush; playwrights and theatre luminaries Karen Malpede, George Bartenieff, Judith Malina, and Hanan Resnikov with members of the Living Theatre;…Mandy Carter: Scientist of Activism Exhibit and WRL Southeast
In the spring of 2022, I set out to learn about the work of the War Resisters League Southeast regional office, based in the Triangle region of North Carolina. One person at the heart of that work, and at the heart of many liberation struggles out of the US South during the 1980s and beyond,…1973 Manhattan Die-In: My First WRL Demonstration
It was the summer of 1973, and I itched to attend an IMPEACH NIXON event in the New York City area. On the edge of my Impeach The President button I saw the phone number for The Committee To Impeach The President. I called that number and asked, “Are there any Impeach Nixon events happening soon?” …Peace Vigils: Then and Now
Standing in a peace vigil holding a sign is a common form of nonviolent activism. The May-June 1967 edition of WRL News features a front page photo of the Times Square Weekly vigil to end the Vietnam War. Standing on April 29, 1967 are WRI Secretary Devi Prasad and Otto Nathan, a WRL Executive Committee member and a regular at…The Personal and the Political of an Early Peace Walk
The late 1950s and early ‘60s ban-the-bomb marches between Aldermaston and London during Easter weekends were an inspiration to me. I read about them in the onion-skin copies of Peace News airmailed from London to the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) office in New York.In 1962 CNVA organized Trident Walks for Nuclear Disarmament, named for three marches from Chicago, Hanover, NH,…
The WRL Peace Calendar: An Overview
For 58 years WRL members and friends could count on having a pacifist touchstone at their fingertips: The War Resisters League Peace Calendar. It was a spiral-bound 5½ by 8½ inch datebook, with a page for each week of the year that allowed owners to record appointments and such. And a cover that consisted of beautiful…
Witness Against Torture: The Campaign to Shut Down Guantanamo
It is impossible to overstate the importance of the War Resisters League’s office at 339 Lafayette Street in the formation of Witness Against Torture in 2005.In December of that year, 25 Catholic activists violated the Bush administration’s bans on travel to Cuba (technically, they just didn’t want travelers to spend any in Cuba) and walked more than 100…Protests Against War Toys
My parents started the War Resisters League New England when I was a baby. Instead of summer camp, I went to the WRL Organizer Training Program at Woolman Hill for 10 days and ran around in the woods with other kids.. We didn’t go on vacation- we went to meetings. But they felt like vacations…
Bayard Rustin Receives 1965 WRL Peace Award
On April 27, 1965, Bayard Rustin was presented with the seventh annual War Resisters League Peace Award at WRL’s 42nd annual dinner. In making the presentation A.J. Muste noting that Bayard “suffered for his convictions and held firmly and courageously to them… [A] tireless seeker for more effective ways to advance the cause of freedom, peace, and humanity throughout the world.” Hear the recording and read an annotated transcript of Rustin’s remarks in this blog entry…
Honoring Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) received the WRL Peace Award in May 1988. Accepting the award were New Jersey veterans and activists David Cline and Clarence Fitch (pictured). During this Veterans Day/Armistice week it is fitting to remember them and tip our hats to the important contribution of VVAW to the antiwar movement during and after the U.S. war…The Magic of the Archive
The first photograph I came across in the War Resisters League Records was unexpected. Well, I say photograph, but really it was a black-and-white negative strip with four images. The images were of a group of four people (friends? I’ve been encouraged to avoid assumptions, judgments, and storytelling in my descriptions, but this won’t be…One Hundred Years of Resistance: WRL’s timeline
In her diary on October 19, 1923, the 48-year-old New York City educator Jessie Wallace Hughan (1875-1955) wrote, “Tracy [Mygatt] to dinner—had hair done—organized real War Resisters League …”WRL was founded as a militant secular pacifist organization with the slogan that “Wars will cease when men refuse to fight.” It evolved into one that embraces a radical…
Dorie Bunting: Peacemaker in the Desert
By Craig SimpsonDorelen (Dorie) Feise Bunting passed away August 24, 2023, at 101 years old. From her teenage years until well into her 90s, Dorie was present and active in the peace and justice movement. She touched the lives of many people in New Mexico and around the world. She was my mentor and friend and…September 11, 2001
On September 11, 2001, War Resisters League staff person David McReynolds, wrote this from the WRL National Office which was only a mile and half north of the World Trade Towers: “As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters League, our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds if not thousands of New Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade Center. The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over the ruins where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers.”War Resisters League’s First 50 Years: The Slideshow
In August 1973, the War Resisters League marked its 50th anniversary during the annual conference at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, CA. Over 550 attendees gathered to commemorate the occasion through reflection and rededication over three days. On the first evening, Larry Gara presented a slideshow to a packed hall. He had spent several years bringing together WRL’s history thus far through photos and stories of the individuals who dedicated themselves to nonviolence and pacifism. Titled “A Glimpse at Our Past: Contents and Images of WRL’s First 50 Years”, the slideshow is now available online including the complete script with notes accompanying each slide.Radicalizing the WRL
Historian Scott Bennett writes in his 2003 book, Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1963:In 1945 those COs who believed strongly that pacifism offered the potential for revolutionary social change, and who were dissatisfied with the WRL, the FOR, and the SP, began communicating with one another about how to promote…Remembering Linda
August 7th is Linda Thurston’s birthday. She would have turned 65 this year. Linda Marie Thurston, WRL’s much loved Operations Coordinator, passed away suddenly in late May 2021. We held a celebration of her life last August. And we continue to honor and remember Linda in many ways…Early Congressional Smear Attempt of WRL
During my research of WRL’s history, every now and then a little gem pops up, thanks to the continuing digitization of old magazines and newspapers, not to mention new student theses and books by historians. One such item dates to the earliest days of WRL. In July 1926, when not yet three years old, an attempt…Texas Peacework and WRL (Part II)
Part 2 (continues from previous blog post)…So life went on at The Farm, hosting peace camps, attending public meetings about Pantex, doing lectures about nukes, planting and watering trees, hosting pilgrimages passing through like Pastors for Peace and Bike Aid, following nuclear weapons truck convoys into and out of Pantex as part of a nationwide…Texas Peacework and WRL (Part I)
I first heard of War Resisters League some time in the mid to late 1980’s as I was getting involved in protesting the Pantex nuclear warhead assembly plant, from whence comes EVERY finished U.S. warhead, located northeast of where I lived: Amarillo, TX……Gay Liberation and a Mid-Century Coming Out Story
“I had mixed reactions when I was informed that WIN was coming out with a special issue on the homosexual and his oppressed state in society. I wondered if the time was right for such a step with the Movement. I feared that such an issue might prove divisive and hurt more than it helped….Out & Outraged: Direct Action During the AIDS Crisis
In the late 1980s it seemed there was no end to the AIDS crisis and increasing homophobia across Reagan-era America. The Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Bowers v. Harwick upholding Georgia’s sodomy law led more than half a million LGBTQIA+ folks and allies to converge on Washington, DC from October 8-13, 1987 for what would become a series of historic events…..First U.S. Demonstration Against the War in Vietnam War
Sixty years ago, the United States had 16,000 military personnel in Vietnam propping up the increasingly brutal South Vietnamese regime headed by Ngô Đình Diệm. Within six years the number of U.S. troops would escalate to over a half million, resulting in almost 60,000 U.S. combat deaths and more than a million Vietnamese, Cambodian, and…Wind in its Sails: the Voyage of the Golden Rule
As the Golden Rule continues its voyage up the East Coast, it is sailing into cities with historic connections. It is now in Philadelphia, home of crew member George Willoughby, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and so many Quaker supporters. Onto New York, home of the War Resisters League office which provided staffing and organizing….Remembering Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte stands with musicians at concert to raise funds for the Montomery Bus Boycott, May 24, 1956. (Photo courtesy WRL/David McReynolds Photo Project) WRL Executive Committee minutes from 1956 have an item on “Non-Violent Work in Race Relations”. Bayard Rustin and Ralph DiGia, WRL staff, were tasked with “Assisting in a fund-raising concert to support…“Stop Militarism in Our Schools!” and the Protest Art of Peg Averill
Peg Averill’s “Stop Militarism in Our Schools!” poster excites me not only for its anti-conscription stance and connections to the Vietnam War, but also for its contemporary relevance, art historical references, and uniquely gender-ambiguous figure. Averill’s “Stop Militarism in Our Schools!” poster immediately stood out to me when choosing a Cooper Hewitt collection object for…War Resisters League – Southwest Campaigns: Kirtland AFB, Sandia and Los Alamos Laboratories
Military Occupation of New Mexico (map) courtesy of Swarthmore College Peace Collection WRL Southwest formed as a chapter and then as a regional office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, during the Vietnam War. We wanted to be a voice for peace, pacifism and nonviolence in the area, which hosted the Kirtland Air Force Base and the…Annual Tax Day Protests
“[T]he customary band of pickets” was how a 1953 New York Times article dismissively termed Tax Day demonstrators from WRL, Catholic Worker, and the Peacemakers outside the Manhattan IRS. The article went on to report “they either refused to pay Federal income taxes or sympathized with those who did not because ‘the huge program of…WRL News and The Nonviolent Activist Online: Personal Reflection
As the Fall 2022 Freeman Intern, I spent the past several months working with The Nonviolent Activist and WRL News. I found the experience challenging and inspiring. It gave me the chance to reflect on 61 years of resistance and consider my own relationship with pacifism. The Nonviolent Activist was launched in 1984. I was…The Middle Years: The Emerging Role of Women in WRL
In accord with Jessie Wallace Hughan’s belief that WRL would likely be more effective if led by men, the role of women, and certainly their authority, decreased substantially post WW II. Indeed, for the next several decades WRL women primarily served as adjuncts to men: doing office work so men could organize demonstrations or resist…Because I Have Gotten to be 80 Years Old
Twenty years ago, on March 19, 2003, the U.S. launched the disastrous and deadly invasion of Iraq. With great hope and determination, millions around the world joined antiwar protests on February 15, a month before the attack. 100 years ago in December Grace Paley was born. That’s something brighter to celebrate during this Women’s History Month….The Early Years: The Feminist Leadership of WRL
In founding and then leading WRL for nearly 20 years, Jessie Wallace Hughan was supported by an impressive group of women, many having previously headed other women’s pacifist, suffragist, anti-conscription, and socialist organizations. Unusually independent for their time, most had graduated from prestigious universities, supported themselves with careers, and were engaged in romantic relationships with like-minded women. Among these colleagues…Southern Intersectional Organizing in the Reagan Era: WRL Southeast
When, in late 1979, Durham, NC-based lesbian feminist organizer Joanne Abel heard about the Klan and Nazi murders of five local leftists at a Greensboro march organized by the Communist Workers Party, she called a friend at the War Resisters League. WRL Southeast office staff organizers Steve Sumerford and Dannia Southerland helped organize a contingent…History of the Broken Rifle Logo
The broken rifle, long associated with WRL and War Resisters’ International predates both organizations. It first appeared in January 1909 on the cover of the Dutch publication De Wapens Neder (Down with Weapons), the periodical of the International Antimilitarist Union in the Netherlands. In 1915 it was on the cover of a pamphlet, Under det…Early WRL Demonstration
One of WRL’s earliest known street actions was a demonstration marking the 10th anniversary of the World War I armistice. On November 10, 1928, 27 pacifists and socialists — including the Youth Division of the War Resisters League, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Union Theological Seminary, Young People’s Socialist League, Bronx Free Fellowship – marched from Bowling…Jessie Wallace Hughan and the Founding of WRL
Up until the first world war, peace and antiwar groups tended to be either religious (such as, AFSC and FOR) or women-only (Women’s Peace Society, Women’s Peace Union, Woman’s Peace Party, WILPF). Hughan sought to change that with the 1915 founding of the Anti-Enlistment League and its pledge to be “against enlistment” for war and…DISARMAMENT ONE STEP AT A TIME
“History is not a collection of dramatic dates of great leaps from oppression to liberation. It is more often seemingly endless night broken by dawn. History is made by people as ordinary as ourselves, but extraordinary in that they have been seized by a dream for which they are willing to struggle and to…MLK and WRL
“As you know, the establishment of social justice in our nation is of profound concern to me. This great struggle is in the interest of all Americans and I shall not be turned from it. Yet no sane person can afford to work for social justice within the nation unless he simultaneously resists war and…Introducing the War Resisters League 100th Anniversary Blog
Founded 100 years ago this year as a secular militant pacifist organization, the War Resisters League is made up of people united in nonviolent opposition to all wars while seeking to remove the causes of war, including racism, sexism and all forms of exploitation.Throughout its 100 years, WRL has held conferences, given out annual peace…
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