Activist history

21 July 2014Comment

Michael Scott on the Committee of 100

There are in this movement many different sorts of people some of them with a capital P: philosophers, poets, preachers, politicians, playwrights and just plain people. That is why we have called this the Committee of 100 because we are all in it and all equally important.

For each and all of us whether he is a so-called starry eyed idealist or a cynic there is one outstanding fact of life that confronts us all. It is a new fact of existence that has never existed before. It is now…

13 July 2014Blog

Four years after the successful conclusion of the Montgomery Bus Boycott - and two-and-a-bit months before the first Freedom Ride - legendary activist and journalist William Worthy reported for Peace News on the treatment meted out to African-American interstate travellers who failed to comply with segregation.

This article first appeared in the 24 February 1961 issue of Peace News.



3 April 2014Review

PM Press, 2010; 256pp; £14.99

This is a roller-coaster read from page one, following the terrifying, exhausting, inspiring and ultimately hopeful story of the Common Ground Collective in New Orleans.

Now nearly 10 years old, the collective began when activists from Texas went to the poor districts of New Orleans to find friends of theirs, former Black Panthers, after Hurricane Katrina hit. Among the floodwaters and devastated neighbourhoods, they found oppressed minority…

1 January 2014Feature

Pledge a donation to support PN's visual celebration of the people and movements that opposed the First World War, featuring the distinctive graphic art of Emily Johns.

Kickstarter site: http://tinyurl.com/theworldismycountry.

In 2014, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, Peace News is launching a major new project: "The World is My Country": A Visual Celebration of the People and Movements that Opposed the First World War.

At the centre of this project will be ten new full-colour posters designed and made by PN's co-editor…

1 November 2013Letter

Following your short piece entitled ‘dosh’, I hope you will allow me to correct a few facts.

The project implicitly referred to, and the object of the heritage lottery fund grant mentioned, is actually called ‘Objecting to War’, for which a sum of £95,800 was granted. The project is to engage with communities and schools in the London area.

Separately, however, the Peace Pledge Union will be carrying out similar work around the country and would very much welcome any…

1 November 2013Review

New Internationalist Publications Ltd; 192pp; £9.99

Activism and resistance – both violent and nonviolent – take centre stage in the New Internationalist’s latest comic book (Fight the Power! A visual history of Protest Among the English-Speaking Peoples; 192pp; £9.99). Written by Séan Michael Wilson (Parecomic) and Benjamin Dickson, and illustrated by John Spelling, Adam Parson and the wonderful Hunt Emerson (How…

1 November 2013Review

Guardian Books, 2013; 178pp; £6.99

On 28 August 1963, Martin Luther King Jnr delivered his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC to an audience of over 200,000 marchers, calling for economic and racial justice for Black Americans and an end to segregation. Unbeknown to him, the justice department had installed a secret cut-off device in the sound system, so that they could turn off the speakers if they saw fit. Meanwhile, the Pentagon had 19,000 troops on standby.

Two…

1 October 2013News

Peace Pledge Union to launch "No More War" project

A £98,000 heritage lottery fund grant to the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) attracted some press attention in September. The grant will enable the PPU to carry out a two-year project to encourage communities and schools across Britain to research local conscientious objectors (COs) during the First World War. There was a debate in the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph and even Le Monde (France) on using publicly-subscribed money in this way – rather than in…

1 October 2013Comment

Jenny Craigen returns to Orange Gate

Everything looked so different, with trees and bushes grown taller, paths diverted and gates moved. I drove straight past Orange Gate where I had spent many weekends and holidays during the 1980s, sitting round the smoky camp fire, planning actions, cooking vegetable stews, singing songs, getting stoned.…

I finally found my way back to the gate, of which only a metal fence post…

1 September 2013Feature

Peter Nias explores some forgotten peace initiatives from a century ago

While the world was aggressively preparing for the First World War between 1900 and 1914, many people and organisations in Britain and Europe were boldly campaigning for peace. This is not generally remembered because that war destroyed so much, even the memory that many people had tried to stop it happening.

So amongst the military and political pressures of preparing for war, with its Boer War inadequacies, Dreadnought battleship-building, Baden Powell boy-scouting and much more,…

1 September 2013Review

Seven Stories Press, 2013; 224pp; £12.99


Parecomic: The Story of Michael Albert and Participatory Economics is a clear, thoughtful and compelling introduction to some of the most challenging ideas around, and to an inspiring life of radical construction. After leading revolutionary student activism in the top scientific university in the US, MIT (the sanctuary described above had a huge impact), Michael Albert was…

1 September 2013Comment

In this era, Peace News’s supportive coverage of feminist campaigns and of anti-sexist men’s groups was still sometimes controversial; it frequently led to continuing debate on the letters pages each fortnight. Here, Mark Ashmore joins in.

I read the letter from Mary Winter [who had accused men’s groups of being ‘the counter-attack on the Women’s Liberation Movement’] with anger, then amazement, and finally with sadness. It seems that not only do male readers not know much about the women’s movement but also some female readers not know much about ‘Men Against Sexism’.

‘Men Against Sexism’ (MAS) avoid the use of the term men’s liberation because it does sound arrogant and does not make clear the great…

1 July 2013Feature

Peace News played an important role in exposing British colonial torture in Kenya, publishing an expose by whistle-blower Eileen Fletcher on 4 May 1956.

Fletcher went to Kenya in December 1954 as a colonial social worker ‘rehabilitating’ women and girls in British detention camps and prisons for Mau Mau militants and sympathisers. She resigned in protest after trying to improve conditions for seven months.

Labour MP Fenner Brockway waved a copy of Peace News in a house of commons debate on Kenya on 6 June 1956, quoting Fletcher.

Fletcher had witnessed children of 11 and 12 being held in prisons in Kenya, and gave details,…

8 February 2013Comment

At their height, there were a dozen simultaneous peace camps at military bases around Britain; PN ran a regular round-up each fortnight.

The Wethersfield US Air Force base, Essex, is the latest target for a peace camp. CND groups in Essex established a camp outside the base on February 6 during a rally of over 200 people. After being a stand-by base for about ten years, fresh developments have been taking place at Wethersfield for the last 18 months. Building work has been going on and 400 extra US personnel have moved in. Activists wonder if there is a secret plan to base the second batch of cruise missiles (after Greenham…

7 January 2013Blog

New book from Peace News Press to be launched on 10th anniversary of 15 February 2003 march, followed by UK speaking tour.

Thanks to your generosity we've already reached our original goal of raising £1,250 towards the costs of publishing Ian Sinclair's new book "The march that shook Blair: An oral history of 15 February 2003" (see below). However, further backing is still very valuable, as this will enable us to do additional promotional work for the book; and pay for some of the unpaid work that has already gone into the production (eg.…