Tom Lewis, One of ‘Catonsville Nine,’ Dies After Life of Activism

[babylonsister]

Tom Lewis, One of ‘Catonsville Nine,’ Dies After Life of Activism
by Tom Pelton

Forty years ago next month, Tom Lewis and eight other Vietnam War protesters strode into the offices of U.S. Selective Service Board 33 in Catonsville and left a mark on history.


The “Catonsville Nine” emptied file cabinets, hauled 600 draft records into the parking lot and burned them with homemade napalm. Then they prayed and waited to be arrested.

That act of civil disobedience on May 17, 1968, inspired headlines - and more than 200 protests at draft board offices across the country. The tone of Vietnam War protests changed, becoming angrier and more intense as the war dragged on for seven more years.

Mr. Lewis’ activism on behalf of peace continued through the rest of his life, ending only Friday, when he died in his sleep at his home in Worcester, Mass., at the age of 68. He might have suffered heart failure, said his brother, Don Lewis, although the medical examiner’s office has not declared a cause of death.

“It was a calling for him to take a stand about what he saw wrong in the world,” said Don Lewis, 72, a retired science teacher who lives in Hampstead. “It was a way of life - there were things going wrong, and he had to make a statement about it.”

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/06/8120/

[Peace Patriot]

1. They were, and still are, America's conscience--those who protested unjust war

then, and those who protest it now.

These are the real heroes of America, those who will not be silent in the face of vast injustice, those who sacrifice themselves to educate the rest of us, to awaken us. They are our moral center.

Rest in peace, Tom Lewis! Father Phillip Berrigan also died not long ago. Rest in peace, Father Berrigan! Your heroic actions for peace and justice will live forever, and will help redeem our ravaged country in the end. We have produced heinous war criminals, but we have also produced you.

You are in the hearts of the 56% of Americans who opposed the current war from the beginning (Feb. '03, NYT poll; other polls 54-55%) that has grown into the whopping, epochal, unprecedented anti-war majority of 70% today. We never had poll numbers like that during the Vietnam War--which edged into a majority only towards the end of that slaughter. Learning to be a peaceful and just country is a long, difficult process. How the fascists and war profiteers have thwarted the will of the majority--the will of a people who DID "learn the lessons of Vietnam," the will of the great peace-minded, justice-loving, progressive American majority--is part of that long learning process, and it is the reality that must deal with, and find the way to overcome, today. How did they thwart the will of the majority, who had LEARNED the lessons that the "Catonsville 9," Martin Luther King and others so eloquently taught us? It would be the best tribute I can think of, for Tom Lewis, Phillip Berrigan and other courageous anti-war activists, for us to figure that out and find the remedy.

[babylonsister]

2. Lovely post, Peace Patriot. I'm glad you noticed this thread and

gave a fitting memorial to Mr. Lewis. :hug:

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. ...

[OhioChick]

4. K&R

:kick:

[Hissyspit]

5. Kick and recommend for those who missed it. n/t

[NOLALady]

6. I'm proud to K & R.

:kick:

[struggle4progress]

7. Lewis led life of activism and creativity

Sunday, April 6, 2008
By Amanda Francoeur
SPECIAL TO THE TELEGRAM & GAZETTE

... Mr. Lewis began developing his views about the tragedy and futility of war during his service in the National Guard, which he entered shortly after graduating from Mount St. Joseph Xavierian High School in Baltimore, Mr. Schaeffer-Duffy said. At the same time, he was developing his skills as an artist ...

... Mr. Lewis also was part of a protest at South Weymouth Naval Air Station on Aug. 6, 1987, in which participants poured blood on a nuclear-capable plane and a helicopter to mark the anniversary of Hiroshima ...

“Tom could well have made a comfortable living teaching art classes full time; he chose to live among the poor in such a way that he was always free to go to jail for nonviolent civil disobedience,” Mr. Schaeffer-Duffy said in a tribute yesterday ...

He illustrated for the book written by Phillip Berrigan, formerly a Roman Catholic priest, and others titled “Disciples & Dissidents: The Prison Writings of the Prince of Peace Plowshares.” In 2004, he won first place in the 69th Regional Exhibition of Art and Craft at the Fitchburg Art Museum ...

http://www.telegram.com/article/20080406/NEWS/804060602/1116

[msedano]

8. QEPD, Tom Lewis

que en paz descanse.

i was back from the army in 1970 and sat on the "jury" in a performance of the play, "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" at the Mark Taper Forum in El Lay. Not guilty.

recommended.