Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 7666 Plough Quarterly • Summer 2015 prisoners spontaneously walked off work in protest, a story told in the book Nonviolence in America, a collection that my wife and I edited. In every wing of the prison, inmates elected one of their number to serve on a general strike ­ committee. A reporter who happened to be present witnessed the action as it unfolded in the seventh wing. A conscientious objector named Simmons mounted a box. He declared that no authority could withstand the power of a united body of men. . . . “Violence accomplishes nothing,” [Simmons said]. “Solidarity accomplishes all things. The watchword of the working men throughout the world today is solidarity. Say nothing, do nothing, but stand like this.” The speaker folded his arms. Colonel Rice, the officer in charge, took the prison inmates’ demands to Washington, DC. Upon his return, 60 percent of the conscien- tious objectors had their sentences reduced, and 33 percent were released immediately. Resisters to military service during World War II included many now known for their leadership in postwar struggles for civil rights and peace. Among them were Bayard Rustin, organizer of the 1963 March on Washington (at which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech), and David Dellinger. Dellinger – who recounts the story in his gripping autobiography From Yale to Jail – was imprisoned twice for his refusal to register for the draft. His first prison term was served at Danbury, Connecticut. Here he requested that guards use his name as well as his number when addressing him, and refused to remake his bed on command (“I was the one who slept in it”). He spent a good deal of time in the “hole,” that is, solitary confinement. When convicted the second time, Dellinger was sent to a notorious prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Here he joined a hunger strike with two objectives: to stop prisoners from being put in the hole and to end censorship of mail. At one point, the prison warden told Dellinger that his wife wanted him to stop his hunger strike – and that she was dying from pregnancy complications. Shaken, he asked to be brought to her. The warden refused. “[T]he more I thought about it,” Dellinger wrote, “the more I thought that he had lied to me.” He had. Weeks later the men ended their hunger strike after they won on the question of censorship, and Dellinger received a pile of supportive letters from his wife. Living Out an Alternative Military conscription during both World Wars had forced thousands of young men throughout the United States to think about their personal responsibility to society. When conscientious objectors were released from Civilian Public Service camps or prison after 1945, many sought positive peacetime alternatives to the root causes of war. They had said “no” to conscrip- tion and now yearned for something to say “yes” to. They hoped to discover and pursue a consistently nonviolent way of life. Some formed intentional communities where economic resources were shared and decision-making was by consensus. My wife and I lived for three years in one such attempt, the Macedonia Cooperative Community in Clarkesville, Georgia. David Hartsough grew up in a similar community, Tanguy Homesteads in Pennsylvania, and describes the experience warmly in his memoir Waging Peace: “Moving there was one of the best decisions my parents ever made.” Among pilgrims who have embarked on a more individual quest for peace, one of the most moving is Rory Fanning, who literally walked across the United States. Shortly after 9/11, Rory had volunteered for the Army Rangers. As his belief in nonviolence gradually