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This is our centennial blog.

War Resisters League’s First 50 Years: The Slideshow

War Resisters League’s First 50 Years: The Slideshow

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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

Radicalizing the WRL

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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…

Remembering Linda

Remembering Linda

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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…

Out & Outraged: Direct Action During the AIDS Crisis

Out & Outraged: Direct Action During the AIDS Crisis

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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“[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

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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…

Virginia Baron’s Introduction to the 1997 WRL Peace Calendar

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Virginia Baron edited the 1997 WRL Peace Calendar, “Womanspirit Moving,” a collection of profiles, quotations, and stories about women organizing for peace and justice around the world. In a lifetime of activism herself, Virginia worked for the Fellowship of Reconciliation, traveled the world on peace delegations, and was active with War Resisters League for at…

The Middle Years: The Emerging Role of Women in WRL

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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

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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

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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

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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…

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