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ou'd better listen up. And quick,” write Dan Berger, Chesa Boudin, and Kenyon Farrow in their editors' introduction to Letters from Young Activists. Many readers-especially those of us past or long past 40-will be tempted to write this challenge off as mere bravado. We'd be better served to take it to heart and plunge in the pages that follow. From the opening section, "Letters to the Previous Generations," through "Letters to the Movements and to the Next Generations," 50 different voices speak their passionate piece. Some address coming-of-age issues particular to younger activists, but most tackle issues that face radicals of all ages from their unique generational vantage point. There are penetrating indictments of oppression and vivid stories of individual experience. Unhealthy dynamics within social movements get a lot of attention. Dilemmas of generational continuity and discontinuity, and questions about how to learn political lessons and pass them on loom large. Tones range from indignation to mourning. Letters with a tight focus and rigorous argument co-exist with meandering tales that convey a mood or, occasionally, lose their way. There are rough spots: a few too many predictable passages and trite formulas. But these are overshadowed by fresh insights and vivid storytelling. The open, self-revealing character of many letters is especially striking. Several make readers feel that we are listening in to a raw conversation, with no experience too painful to share and no idea too heretical to consider. Thinking
in new ways "Dearest Hip Hop," in which Walidah Imarisha and Not4Prophet poetically lay out their reaction to changes in their mad-loved "rebel without a pause." "Dear Punk Rock Activism" by Andy Cornell: This letter offers a model for combining appreciation with critical and self-critical reflection. "Dear Movement" from Kat Aaron: This writer allows us to listen in on her intimate wrestling match with "hope and frustration" and her challenge to prevailing orthodoxies in the anti-authoritarian political community. Ashley Lucas' letter from Hamlin, TX, links personal experience and a broad analytic framework on prisons with a rare skill that does justice to both. "To my future self, fifty years from now, aged 73": Michelle Kuo takes us on a journey from the small town of Helena, AK, to true philosophical depths-a blockbuster of wisdom. Representative
and not Perhaps related to this one-sidedness, the overall package is long on process, dynamics, and tactics and short on strategies for assembling any kind of alliance or social bloc that can barge into national politics and advance empowerment of the oppressed. Yet if these shortcomings are especially pronounced here, at bottom they reflect weaknesses of the U.S. left as a whole. And, as many letter-writers insist, they can only be effectively addressed by a true intergenerational effort. Such an effort is inconceivable without the central participation of the activists speaking here and those they represent, and without older activists learning everything we can from the messages these letters send. In this light, the book's preface by former Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn is a missed opportunity. Her piece is a powerful call to struggle and a well-crafted description of Letters' strengths. But in discussing the 1960s it glides over the tough questions posed by the very activists she praises. This was a chance for the best-known leader of one of the most controversial 1960s tendencies to address the challenge posed, for example, in "Dear Older Activists" by Chris Dixon: "I especially want to encourage you to be more open about your uncertainties, your mistakes and your struggles … . There aren't too many visible models of folks who are courageously and compassionately self-critical … willing to talk honestly, humbly, and directly about their mistakes and sources of confusion." Modeling that kind of engagement with the letter-writers would have been a wiser and more valuable choice. After all, what Chris Dixon (and many other letter-writers in different language) demands is both their need and their due. From those of us who have gone before, they don't require only-or even mainly-to be cheered on, encouraged, or implored to keep the faith. They have commitment, energy, tenacity, and hope in overflowing measure. And they have the acumen to demand not just supporters, but active partners. The responsibility of us older activists is to be as forthright, probing, and self-probing as the letter-writers in this book. We need to lay out our experience and our conclusions and our questions, realizing that we will not be the ones to control what the next generation makes of it all or finds useful in the mix. Letters from Young Activists should spur us on. In approaching this fine book, and in our relationship with young activists generally, one of the prescriptions that has helped so many of us through other transitions should be our guide: Show up. Pay attention. Tell the truth. Let go of the result. Max Elbaum, active in antiwar and antiracist movements since the 1960s, is the author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che (Verso, 2002), a critical/self-critical history of the post-1960s "new communist movement."
Revolutionary Nonviolence and the Critiquing of David Dellinger By Matt Meyer
The book opens with news of Dellinger's death in 2004 at age 88, citing supporters and critics alike about the remarkable life he led. In a style that is characteristic of the entire volume, Hunt quotes from mainstream-often conservative-sources, as well as from various movement friends and associates. But the flat reporting of the views of Dellinger's critics implies that there is at least some merit in their disrespect. It matters little to this reviewer that right-wing radio talk show host and columnist Mike Rosen called Dellinger a "self indulgent … oxymoronic militant pacifist." Most significant is the fact that Hunt centers around the idea that Dellinger lived a life full of seemingly irreconcilable differences. Among these conflicts were that Dave was "a rigid Gandhian and an ideologically flexible supporter of various revolutionary movements overseas" and that he was a "methodical coalition organizer and a stubborn sectarian." What Hunt misses is the politics. One can be committed to the power of nonviolence and support a complete overhaul of the systems of capitalism, racism, and oppression. One can believe in the importance of a united front against war and still hold principled positions as a member of that front. Within these alleged contradictions is what some might call the dialectic: a springboard to action and thinking outside of the box, as opposed to a fundamental flaw. Much writing is spent examining Dellinger's childhood and formative student years. The reader learns about his mentors as an undergraduate student at Yale, tantalizing tidbits about his trips to war-torn Spain and Germany in the late 1930s. Intense stories of Dave's first hunger strikes and placement in solitary confinement, protesting segregation and censorship as a WWII conscientious objector imprisoned at Lewisburg Penitentiary, fill the early chapters. What is lacking amid this information is basic insight. Dellinger is consistently referred to as having "anarchical" politics, despite the fact that he was a young member of the Socialist Party, USA, and that recent conversations between this reviewer and Dave's CO buddies and life-long friends Sutherland and DiGia suggest a more complicated ideological grounding. More problematic is Hunt's own limited understanding and dismissal of the vital race-related issues of the era. At one point in the text, a litany of jailed WWII objectors is given, including pacifist Hopi Indians, Japanese Americans outraged by the internment camps, members of the Nation of Islam, and disaffected Puerto Ricans. These groups are contrasted, in Hunt's words, with "actual" (read: white) war resisters. This assessment is particularly striking, given how antithetical it is to Dellinger's own thinking on the matter. Throughout Hunt's appraisal of the sixties, the movement is constantly in decline, with Dellinger looking foolish and weak and playing into his enemies' hands. The context of what is happening on the streets of the United States, on predominantly white college campuses, or in predominantly Black inner-city communities is noticeably missing, as is any description of the devastation of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. It isn't surprising that Hunt cites Nixon's round-the-clock bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong-not the antiwar actions, not the refusal of U.S. soldiers to fight, not the resistance of the population of Vietnam-as the primary factor that led to the war's end. Certainly biographers are not required to admire or agree with their subjects. Yet what is most disappointing about this biography is not the differences between author and subject, but the lack of clarity and honesty in bringing those differences into focus. Dave's emphasis on the importance of work supporting U.S. political prisoners, with particular concern for American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier, is mentioned in one sentence; his antinuclear work is minimized to one paragraph. Dellinger's continuous work in solidarity with Vietnam, coupled with his growing support of the movements in Central America and Puerto Rico, are omitted or relegated to brief mentions. Most significantly missing is a sense of Dellinger's voice: his respect for younger activists, his passionate anti-imperialism, his tough love for all people. Though The Life and Times of a Nonviolent Revolutionary may be necessary reading for those of us who collect every word written on the subject, for those looking for a single volume on Dellinger, I recommend searching the used-book bins of your local store or the Internet, to find Dave's own More Power Than We Know, From Yale to Jail, Vietnam Revisited, or Revolutionary Nonviolence. It is hard to believe that all of these titles are out of print, and that new editions-complete with a critical but fair assessment of Dellinger's work added as an introduction or afterword-have yet to make it to market. Matt Meyer is co-chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association and serves on the Administrative Coordinating Committee of the War Resisters League. By Larry Gara
Much of the book addresses the philosophical basis for individual acceptance of nonviolence. Chernus writes little about the actions of these nine individuals; it is their motivating philosophies that interest him most, as he analyzes the strengths and weaknesses in their thinking. Yet how much such philosophical factors influence activists is a matter of question. The effective use of mass nonviolence in India, Poland, the U.S. civil rights movement, and the movement for women's suffrage involved thousands who knew little of the various philosophical bases for their nonviolent actions. Some of the author's choices are puzzling. Why, for instance, would the discussion of Quaker pacifism end with the contributions of John Woolman in the 18th century? Additionally, some historians would question whether William Lloyd Garrison was the leading 19th-century proponent of nonviolence in the United States since, unlike his contemporaries Elihu Burritt and Adin Ballou, he set aside his pacifism to support the Union cause in the Civil War. Moreover, in discussing influences on Martin Luther King Jr., Chernus mentions Niebuhr, Christian philosopher Paul Tillich, and Gandhi, but not Bayard Rustin or A. J. Muste. The author's final chapter, a conclusion in which he compares the strong and weak points of the various bases for nonviolence, is the book's most interesting section. Although he leans strongly toward the religious motivations for pacifism, he sees merit in Barbara Deming's secular approach and synthesizes them in his final position. Writing a book on the idea of nonviolence is daunting, and Chernus largely succeeds. Yet, while all movements need philosophical underpinnings, philosophy and ideas are not enough. This work might be supplemented with other writings, perhaps The Missing Peace, by James Juhnke and Carol Hunter. Nevertheless, American Nonviolence, thoroughly researched and well written, would prove an excellent choice for a pacifist study group. Historian and longtime WRL member Larry Gara has been a frequent contributor to the Nonviolent Activist. By Amanda Daloisio
Larson began the film in 1993 after attending the Catholic Worker's 60th anniversary celebration and meeting long-time Catholic Worker Joe Zarella, who encouraged her to make it. Thirteen years later we have the fruits of that encounter: a poignant picture of a remarkable woman. While Day is considered worthy of sainthood by many, including some in the Catholic hierarchy, as Day's famous quote, "Don't call me a saint," in the title suggests, getting to know this woman might not be such an easy task. Much has been made of Dorothy Day as a great paradox. Many have tried to capture who she was, and most conclude that while the facts of her life might seem at odds to some, at her core was a firm belief in the dignity of every person and the insatiable desire to create and live out a vision of a more just world. Don't Call Me a Saint chronicles Day's roots in early-20th-century communist circles and in the company of radical writers, her work as a journalist, her common-law marriage to Forster Batterham, and the birth of her daughter-an event that influenced her conversion and entrance into the Catholic Church. We are taken through protests of the air raid drills and the Vietnam War, the growth of the Catholic Worker newspaper, the opening of many houses of hospitality, her last arrest in 1973 with the United Farmworkers, and finally, her death on November 29, 1980. Larson allows much of the story to be told simply through photographs, many of them quite striking: crowded dinners at the Catholic Worker, demonstrations, alone in prayer, or surrounded by children. The many interviews in the film give voice and depth to the archival footage, weaving stories about Dorothy and life at the Catholic Worker with a conversational ease. Those interviewed make up an eclectic list: Day's daughter, Tamar Hennessy; Catholic Workers past and present; authors John Cort, Eileen Egan, and Fr. Daniel Berrigan; and artist Ade Bethune. The interviewees are at once serious and joking, chuckling at anecdotes and recounting with awe Dorothy's impact upon their lives. Larson uses art and music with careful attention to detail. The art is bold and the music ethereal, not used as filler but as crucial aspects of the story. Behind the conversations and photos one can hear Puccini, one of Dorothy's favorites, La Bohème and La Rondine, the Latin chant Veni Creator from the Roman rite, and original music by Wes Hambright. There are woodcuts of the Works of Mercy, and ink drawings of the violence of war and the lives of the saints. This use of art and music embodies Dorothy's belief that "the world will be saved by beauty," and her ability to find that beauty in the midst of suffering. The full quote goes, "Don't call me a saint, I don't want to be dismissed that easily." Day feared that the pedestal of sainthood would make us, mere mortals, forget the many tasks at hand-the daily struggle of building a better world. This film ensures we never will. For more information on the film, visit www.dorothydaydoc.com. Amanda Daloisio lives at the New York Catholic Worker with her husband, Matthew. By Tod Ensign
Inside the coffeehouses, a "counter-cultural" spirit of sex, psychedelic drugs, and rock 'n' roll co-existed with a strong antiwar message. Civilian activists from the antiwar movement worked in tandem with active-duty GIs, some of whom had just returned from Vietnam. In some cases, soldiers took the lead in setting political goals, providing GI counseling, and putting out an antiwar newspaper-a staple of every GI organization. By 1971, the GI movement extended from Germany to Vietnam, from enlisted personnel serving in Alaska to Air Force specialists eavesdropping on the Vietnamese in northern Thailand. Sir! No Sir! is the first documentary film to tell the story of this dynamic and sometimes misunderstood movement. It reveals that resistance within the armed forces was the most important factor after the heroic tenacity of the Vietnamese in convincing Nixon to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam. To tell this incredible story, filmmaker Dave Zeiger uses interviews with participants in this movement such as Vets for Peace President Dave Cline, former Green Beret Don Duncan, Dr. Howard Levy, West Pointer Louis Font, military nurse turned antiwar activist Susan Schnall, and Jane Fonda. Zeiger focuses on the Oleo Strut coffeehouse outside Ft. Hood in Killeen, TX, where he himself was a civilian activist. It's a good choice, since this was one of the most successful GI projects, attracting national attention when it organized thousands of active- duty GIs to march through Killeen's streets protesting the war. The film also details the grassroots campaign led by antiwar sailors in San Diego, who conducted a "vote" among local residents on whether the carriers USS Coral Sea and Kitty Hawk should be returned to Vietnam. The film also makes clear that, in many cases, Black GIs were the most militant and courageous critics of war policies. It also appears that they suffered more physical abuse from the command than did white critics of the war. The story of their principled refusal to be used as riot police against their own communities, which were rebelling after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., is well told. Greg Payton, a Black Vietnam vet, provides an account of how mostly Black inmates protested conditions at the Long Binh Jail in Vietnam by burning some of the buildings to the ground. Probably because of a dearth of documentary material, the film doesn't devote much time to the antiwar organizing that went on in the combat zones of Vietnam-although this was the Pentagon's greatest concern. One report of "combat refusal" at Fire Base Pace is featured, with footage and segments by journalist Richard Boyle, who captures the drama of one company and then another refusing orders to go out on patrol against a vastly superior Vietnamese force. During a two-and-a-half-year period from 1969 to 1971, there were dozens of such "combat refusals" and 435 "fragging" incidents (attacking members of one's unit using fragmentation grenades) in which 80 percent of the targets were officers. Sir! No Sir! is not without deficiencies, however. It makes no mention of the work of the American Servicemen's Union; its support fund, which raised money for the movement; or its influential newspaper, The Bond. It also fails to acknowledge the Pacific Counseling Services at Asian bases or the Concerned Officers Movement (COM), which brought many low-ranking officers into the antiwar struggle. Perhaps the film's greatest defect is its muddled treatment of the war crimes issue as it relates to low-ranking combat veterans. It features only one witness from the Winter Soldier Investigation of war crimes in Vietnam and does not delve into the "search-and-destroy zones" and "body counting" that were conceived at the highest levels of the civilian and military leadership. It is also erroneously stated that Lt. William Calley was the highest-ranking person charged with the My Lai massacre. In fact, his superiors Captain Ernest Medina and Lt. Col. Oran Henderson were also court-marshaled, although both were eventually acquitted. Yet none of these shortcomings should deter anyone from seeing this historic film and working to broaden its distribution. Sir! No Sir! restores an important chapter to our living history. While it's important to study the history of earlier antiwar struggles, activists should always ask: How can we apply these lessons to our situation today? So far, no one has organized a GI coffeehouse to serve the tens of thousands of soldiers who have been sent to fight in Iraq. Still, within the movement of anti-Iraq War vets, one can hear murmurs of such a revival. Tod Ensign is director of Citizen Soldier, a GI/veterans advocacy group established in 1969. He is also author of America's Military Today: The Challenge of Militarism (New Press, 2004). He can be reached at citizensoldier1@aol.com or (212)679-2250. Remembering
the Ladies By Judith Mahoney Pasternak
Acquiring that voice-winning the vote-took nearly a century and a half of struggle. But accompanying that slow revolution were profound changes in industrial production and communications, which made it possible for the fight for suffrage to be more thoroughly documented than any previous revolution. Robert P.J. Cooney Jr. has put hundreds of those documents together in his immense and long-awaited Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement. Inside this collection are the faces of hundreds of women who led and participated in that fight-women with household names like Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and like Inez Milholland and Louise Baldwin, famous or infamous in their day but now little known. There are photographs of meetings, mass demonstrations, and smaller acts of civil disobedience by women whose names are now lost. There are reproductions of pamphlets and flyers demanding the vote for women, along with some arguing against it; reproductions of the founding charters of the many organizations that worked for suffrage— national groups like the National Woman Suffrage Association and state and local groups across the nation—and hundreds of newspaper editorials and editorial cartoons endorsing and opposing suffrage, lampooning the suffragists and, sometimes, lampooning their opponents. Cooney uses these materials to tell, in rich detail, the complex story of the national and state-by-state suffrage campaigns. Despite Abigail Adams' famous warning, the nation's founding fathers did not, in fact, "remember the ladies." Locked out of the franchise, women did not at first see themselves as a political force. But by the middle decades of the 19th century, their increasing presence and ultimate leadership in the movement to abolish slavery began to lead them to a movement of their own: On the one hand, fighting for the rights of others inspired them to think about their own rights; on the other, they were finding that they had a powerful political voice. In 1848, 300 people attended a women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY, organized by Stanton, Mott, and others. Two years later, in Massachusetts, 1000 people—including the former slave Frederick Douglass—participated in the first national women's rights convention. Now there was a movement. It was denounced as "unwomanly." It was opposed by the liquor industry, which covertly financed many of the anti-suffrage efforts because of its fear-inspired by the prominence of women in the temperance movement-that an electorate with women in it would ban alcohol. (In fact, Prohibition would be enacted before women won the vote.) It was plagued by the same divisions over tactics, goals, and strategy that have cost so many movements time and energy. Yet in the 72 years that followed the Seneca Falls convention, the movement won: first, voting rights for women in some states, and finally, suffrage for all. The story has been told before, of course, in more detail and with more frequency since the Second Wave Feminism of the 1960s and '70s incorporated women into U.S. history. What Winning the Vote offers is a vivid view of the actual faces and words that won the vote, if not full equality, for women. Unfortunately, the view does not come cheap. The hefty $85 price tag may deter many people from purchasing Winning the Vote. You might, however, be able to persuade your local library to carry it. Think of the effort as a small action in the ongoing struggle for equal rights. The former editor of the Nonviolent Activist, Judith Mahoney Pasternak has covered women's issues for 30 years. |
s
catchphrases go, "revolutionary nonviolence" has not exactly caught the imagination
of many activists. Full of rhetoric and apparently contradictory meanings, those
two words balanced against one another appear to confuse as many people as they
inspire. Nevertheless, they were favorites of lifelong radical pacifist Dave Dellinger,
who not only used the phrase as the title of his first major book, but also saw
in them the best definition of his often-criticized politics. With the just-released
biography, David Dellinger: The Life and Times of a Nonviolent Revolutionary,
the progressive movement is offered another opportunity to understand this sometimes
complicated man and his vision. However, despite author Andrew E. Hunt's substantial
research, the book is fraught with flaws, many of them stemming from Hunt's own
misunderstandings about the potential meaning and importance of both nonviolence
and revolution in our turbulent times. 
ra
Chernus, a professor of religious studies, has written American Nonviolence primarily
from the religious perspective. While he includes material on the secular basis
for nonviolence, most of his study involves individuals and groups who based their
nonviolence on Christianity or other religions. These individuals are William
Lloyd Garrison, Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Reinhold Niebuhr, A.J.
Muste, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Barbara Deming, and Thich Nhat Hanh.
(The inclusion of Niebuhr is questionable-although he promoted nonviolence from
time to time, no other Christian pastor was as influential in arguing for full
support of World War II.) 
his
thoughtful labor of love was written, directed, and produced by Claudia Larson
(a first-time filmmaker) and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York
City in April. Running at 57 minutes, it does not attempt to address every aspect
of Dorothy Day's life, but does address the primary challenge: How does one tell
the story of a woman who was as ordinary as she was extraordinary, without romanticizing
either aspect? 
ne
of the greatest achievements of the anti-Vietnam War movement was the creation
of a GI coffeehouse and counseling network. The first coffeehouse opened outside
Ft. Jackson, SC, in late 1967, two-and-a-half years after U.S. troops were sent
to Vietnam in large numbers. Within weeks, hundreds of GIs had visited during
their off- duty hours. Over the next year, similar projects sprang up outside
a dozen other major U.S. bases. 
emember the
ladies," wrote Abigail Adams in 1776 to her husband, the revolutionary leader
and future President John Adams. Then, proving she was at least as radical as
he was, she warned that if the leaders of the new nation failed to include women
in the body politic, "[W]e … will not hold ourselves bound to obey any laws in
which we have no voice or representation."