Peacemakers was an American

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

organization founded following a conference on "More Disciplined and Revolutionary Pacifist Activity" in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

in July 1948.

Ernest Ernest is a given name derived from the Germanic languages, Germanic word ''ernst'', meaning "serious", often shortened to Ernie. Notable people and fictional characters with the name include: People *Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595), ...

and Marion Bromley and Juanita and Wally Nelson largely organized the group. The group’s organizational structure adopted a multidivisional organizational structure with a loose hierarchy, prioritizing local committees including but not limited to the Tax Refusal and Military Draft Refusal Committee.

Organizational structure

The Peacemakers differed from other pacifist and nonviolent resistance organizations in their emphasis on small-scale, local, "cell-based" organizations and

intentional communities An intentional community is a voluntary residential community designed to foster a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork. Such communities typically promote shared values or beliefs, or pursue a common vision, which may be politica ...

. It had no national office, paid staff, or membership list. Some member groups of the Peacemakers organized funds to aid war resisters and people in the civil rights movement who had suffered reprisals.

History

The development and ideological foundation of the Peacemakers can be credited to the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

American religious renewal and a rising discontent with American war efforts. In 1944 and 1945, Activist A.J. Muste held conferences on “the philosophy and methodology of revolutionary pacifism” alongside a successive conference in 1947 in coalition with the Consultative Peace Council at Pendle Hill. These meetings were the catalyst for the creation of the Peacemakers and garnered momentum for religious pacifism within the anti-war efforts of the 1940s. The Committee for Nonviolent Revolution was absorbed by the Peacemakers in 1948 following the Chicago conference for “more disciplined and revolutionary pacifism,” which convened over 250 individuals. Membership was restricted to those who were willing to take personal responsibility in separating themselves from the “war-making state”.

Socio-political values

Peacemakers were a socialist-anarchist group whose values centered on economic and social community upliftment. According to A.J. Muste, the group marked the beginning of “an International community of Non-Violence and Good-Will.” The organization believed in resource sharing and cooperation to displace a capitalistic lifestyle. They experimented with communal living, shared property, and budgeted income. Many members came from the Committee for Nonviolent Revolution, which had been formed two years before. The group's members vowed to (1) refuse to serve in the armed forces in either peace or war; (2) refuse to make or transport weapons of war; (3) refuse to be conscripted or to register; (4) consider refusing to pay taxes for war purposes — a position already adopted by some; (5) spread the idea of peacemaking and to develop non-violent methods of opposing war through various forms of non-cooperation and to advocate unilateral disarmament and economic democracy. Peacemakers were dedicated to “engaging in holy disobedience against the war-making and conscripting state.” Their primary beliefs were founded upon a modern understanding of

enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

realism. The organization‘s political values originated from the belief that society was materialistic and autocratic. According to scholar Leilah Danielson, the organization acted on the notion that “by taking suffering upon themselves in individual and collective active disobedience, they would cut through the conformist culture of the 1950s and awaken their fellow Americans to their responsibility for the atomic and international crisis”. In the 1950s, the Peacemakers’ socio-political involvement focused on advocacy for international nuclear disarmament and the civil rights movement. The group also held close ties to the

Catholic Worker Movement The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the United States in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ". One of its guiding prin ...

, the Student Christian Movement, the

Congress of Racial Equality The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about ...

(CORE), and the

Gandhian The followers of Mahatma Gandhi,one of the prominent figure of the Indian independence movement, are called Gandhians. Gandhi's legacy includes a wide range of ideas ranging from his dream of ideal India (or ''Rama Rajya)'', economics, environ ...

philosophy of nonviolence.

Achievements and Activism

Tax Refusal During the late 1940s, the Peacemakers distributed several anti-taxation pamphlets and contributed to demonstrations towards this cause. Notably, a 1949 leaflet marked taxation as a “cancer with its roots in your purse and in your mind.” It further stated, “you pay the bills of war, you accept war jobs, you bombed Nagasaki. If you keep on doing these routine, but really immoral things, you will soon bomb hundreds of other cities.” Military Draft Resistance Peacemakers conducted an anti-conscription campaign in alliance with the

War Resisters League The War Resisters League (WRL) is the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States, having been founded in 1923. History Founded in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I, it is a section of the London-based War Resisters' ...

and African American leader

A. Philip Randolph Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was an American labor unionist and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful African-American-led labor union. In the ...

. Segregation became a catalyst for Randolph’s creation of the Committee against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training in 1947. Well-known civil rights organizer and activist

Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin ( ; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an American political activist and prominent leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin was the principal organizer of the March on Wash ...

was appointed Executive Secretary for the Committee against Jim Crow. The Peacemakers continued its advocacy campaigns by working in collaboration with the NAACP and local civil rights organizations to advocate for equality. Community Mutual Aid In June 1949, Wally Nelson and Carson Foltz held a meeting to discuss “how may a Peacemaker earn his living, spend his money, and provide economic security for his family in a profit-centered society.” Starting with the

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, Ohio metro area, the forum focused on providing local communities with shared resources to avoid “predatory enterprises” (banks, insurance, investments, etc.). A consensus was met to create a voluntary mutual aid funding pool to which Peacemakers and participating individuals could contribute and benefit from simultaneously. Wally and Juanita were assigned the role of creating a program in addition to the funding pool that described Peacemaker economics and disciplines. The local branch alongside the Bromleys purchased a group farmhouse north of Cincinnati to share the responsibility of food, finances, childcare, and maintaining communal belongings. This was done to model nonviolent and

collectivist In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and groups. Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, struct ...

living based on Marxist philosophy. At the farmhouse, the Bromleys established ''Gano Peacemakers, Inc.'', a non-profit organization that was later seized by the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

for their refusal to pay taxes, a method used to protest against military and war activities.

Notable Members

Founders * A.J. Muste * Ernest Bromley * Marion Bromley * Juanita Nelson * Wally Nelson *

Dwight Macdonald Dwight Macdonald (March 24, 1906 – December 19, 1982) was an American writer, critic, philosopher, and activist. Macdonald was a member of the New York Intellectuals and editor of their leftist magazine '' Partisan Review'' for six years. He ...

Ralph T. Templin Ralph T. Templin (1896–1984) was an American missionary in India, and an educator, publisher, and social activist. In 1954, he became the first white minister to join the then all-black Methodist Lexington Conference. Missionary work in India ...

Roy Kepler Roy or Roi is a masculine given name and a family surname with varied origins. France In France, this family name originated from the Normans, the descendants of Norse Vikings who migrated to Amigny, a commune in Manche, Normandy.. The deriva ...

* Cecil Hinshaw * Milton Mayer *

* George Houser * Horace Champney Important Figures * Benny Bargen *

Dorothy Day Dorothy Day, Oblate#Secular oblates, OblSB (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and Anarchism, anarchist who, after a bohemianism, bohemian youth, became a Catholic Church, Catholic without aba ...

Ralph DiGia Ralph DiGia (December 13, 1914 – February 1, 2008) was a World War II conscientious objector, lifelong pacifist and social justice activist, and staffer for 52 years at the War Resisters League. Born in the Bronx to a family of Italian immigran ...

* Fyke Farmer * Walter Gormly *

Ammon Hennacy Ammon Ashford Hennacy (July 24, 1893 – January 14, 1970) was an American Christian pacifist, anarchist, Wobbly, social activist, and member of the Catholic Worker Movement. He established the Joe Hill House of Hospitality in Salt Lake City ...

* Bradford Lyttle * Maurice McCrackin * Mary Stone McDowell * Karl Meyer * James Otsuka * Jim Peck * Eroseanna Robinson * Igal Roodenko * Max Sandin * George Willoughby * Lillian Willoughby *

Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer, literary critic, and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing ...

References