This is our centennial blog.
March to the Pentagon The final day of walking — Monday October 18 — threatened to be cold and rainy. It was cold and sunny. The Park Police were unyielding in their insistence we walk on the sidewalk across the Memorial Bridge to Virginia. We were ready to walk in the streets up to the…
Though the heart and soul of The Walk were the walkers, the organizers were the infrastructure or exoskeleton, to continue the anatomical metaphor. While the actual walking took 9 months, the organizing stretched over 23 months. The Walk national office was tasked with fundraising; planning the San Francisco to Washington route; helping to locate community…
“[We were on] the Walk from San Francisco to Riverside and it changed our lives. We were all students from Friends World College, and were all looking for student projects when we came across an ad for The Walk. . . . All I can say at this point almost 40 years later is WOW!…
It’s one thing to decide to go ahead with an ambitious project like the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice and quite another to put it all together in a bit less than a year. Little did we imagine the crises that were lying in wait. It was February 1975 when WRL — quickly…
On October 16, 1976, hundreds of people — accompanied by signs, banners, puppets, flags, musical instruments — crossed the city from three directions to converge on the Lincoln Memorial. All went smoothly that Saturday morning as each of the three routes started off with 150 to 200 people at staggered times from borders surrounding the…
If it weren’t for local and regional organizers, the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice might just have been a single route from San Francisco to Washington DC. Local organizers throughout the country were The Walk’s unsung heroes, putting together events, generating publicity, contacting the media, setting up hosting, providing food, and coordinating with…
Even before its first step, The Walk was attacked in the Congressional Record by a U.S. Congressman as well as dismissed by the head of one of our sponsoring organizations who privately commented, “It’ll never make it out of the Mohave desert.” Despite doubters, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stayed…
As the United States celebrates “Veterans Day” on November 11th, WRL calls for a return to its pacifist origins as Armistice Day which marked the anniversary of the end of the “Great War” (World War I). On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, it was a time to mourn those…
On Indigenous Peoples Day and every day, WRL stands in solidarity with Indigenous-led movements and organizations working to build Indigenous power and liberation. For decades, the War Resisters League has supported and worked alongside Indigenous-led movements to protect communities and sacred lands in the southwest from uranium mining. In recent years, WRL has supported Indigenous-led…
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush and the U.S. government quickly sought revenge on Afghanistan even though Afghan people had nothing to do with the attack. WRL immediately issued a statement drafted by David McReynolds and, along with many other peace groups, organized vigils opposing the country’s blood lust. This activity…
August 1973: “I was staying at Joan Baez’s Institute for the Study of Nonviolence in Palo Alto, Calif., having taken a Greyhound from Cleveland after graduating high school. There were some wooden racks in the garage for drop-ins like me. Robert Cooney was working on The Power of the People, a history of direct action…
Hiroshima, August 6, 1977. Suddenly, a commotion — punctuated by very loud short bursts of whistles — can be heard emanating from the main street. A long line of riot police wielding huge shields is trying to keep up with a rapidly moving column of young men and women waving antinuclear flags and signs filling…
Lucasfilm released a series of educational, historical documentaries in 2007. They were companions to “The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones,” a television series created and produced by George Lucas/Lucasfilm in the 1990s. Lucas wanted to inspire interest in history, taking advantage of the popularity of the Indiana Jones feature films starring Harrison Ford. Twenty-two television…
The title of this blog serves as a tribute to John Lennon and Yoko Ono who posted that message on a billboard in Times Square, December 1969. April 30, 2025, marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee is marking the occasion with a webinar co-sponsored by…
When Pete Seeger said, “The right song at the right moment can change history” he spoke a truth that resonates with peace and justice activists across time and space. No matter our age, where we live, or which action we take for peace and social justice, songs bring us together and give us strength, courage,…
Active military considering their options can look to the War Resisters League and other organizations for examples of GI resistance as well as practical guides. WRL’s new Resources for GI Rights and Resistance (PDF download) includes stories of GI resisters, videos featuring WRL members, articles, book reviews, and a book published by War Resisters’ International. Check…
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…
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…
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…
WRI exec statement: on the Israel-Hamas ceasefire January 20, 2025 – As a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel comes into force, we can only begin to imagine the relief of all those who were being bombed yesterday, but are not being bombed today. All wars are crimes against humanity. The last fifteen months of relentless, genocidal…
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