No Title 2690

Supplement to “Peacemakers”

FAMOUS KENTUCKIANS FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

John Fee (1816-1901) A devoted abolitionist, Fee founded the town of Berea and Berea College in the 1850s with help from Cassius M. Clay. The college began as a one-room school, but by 1859, Fee and his followers developed the first articles of incorporation, just in time to be driven out of Madison County by 60 armed, pro-slavery sympathizers. Fee fled to Ohio, where he spent five years raising funds and in 1865 returned to Berea. By 1869, Berea College was a reality. One of John Fee’s favorite scriptures, and the one that has been Berea’s motto since its inception, is “God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth” (Acts 17:26). For decades after the Civil War, Berea College’s student body was half black and half white. (Read Autobiography of John G. Fee, Berea, Kentucky to find out more about his beliefs and courage.)

Anne Braden (1924-2006) A Louisville journalist, Braden delivered the message through her writings and her activism that whites have a responsibility to fight racism. She and her husband, Carl, were actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954, they bought a house for an African American family in a segregated section of Louisville, and local racists soon destroyed it. Those responsible were never charged: instead, Carl and Anne Braden were accused of sedition, cast by the prosecution as a Communist plot (read Fosl’s biography Subversive Southerner to find out what happened). In her later years, Braden taught social justice history at Northern Kentucky University and the University of Louisville. (To read more, go to al.comm.louisville.edu/abi.)

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a Trappist monk at Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky for 27 years. He is the author of more than 70 books that include an autobiography, letters, social criticism, poetry, and writings on peace and justice. He has been called “the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960s,” and was a strong supporter of the nonviolence of the Civil Rights Movement. A year before he died of an accidental electrocution, he designated Bellarmine University to be the official center to hold his manuscripts, artistic work, and memorabilia. (To read more, go to www.Merton.org.)

Muhammad Ali (1942- ) Ali has been until recently a very controversial figure. He converted to the Nation of Islam, discarded his “slave name,” and took a stand against the army as a “conscientious objector” during the Vietnam War, heralding the black pride and peace movements of the ’60s. After he retired, he began his humanitarian work: he personally delivered supplies to orphanages, hospitals, and poverty-stricken areas around the world. The United Nations named him “U.N. Messenger of Peace,” and Jimmy Carter called him “Mr. International Friendship.” In 2005 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In spite of being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he continues his travels and charity work here and abroad. The Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Ali’s hometown, aims to “share his inspiration with the world.” (To learn more, go to www.alicenter.org and www.louisville.edu/aliinstitute.)

KENTUCKIANS, PAST AND PRESENT, WHO WORK FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
Suggested books and Web sites

BEREA COLLEGE

John G. Fee
Autobiography of John G. Fee, Berea, Kentucky (National Christian Association, 1891; republished 2010)

Michelle Tooley
Voices of the Voiceless: Women, Justice, and Human Rights in Guatemala (Herald Press, 1997)

www.berea.edu/cataloghandbook/dpc/psj-prg.asp Description and requirements for the minor in Peace and Social Justice Studies at Berea College

BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY

J. Milburn Thompson
Justice and Peace: A Christian Primer (Orbis, 2003)
Introducing Catholic Social Thought (Orbis, 2010)

Thomas Merton
Peace in the Post-Christian Era (Orbis, 2004) with Patricia A. Burton
Faith and Violence (University of Notre Dame Press, 1968)

Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty
Prayers for the New Social Awakening, co-edited by Christian Iosso and Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty. (Westminster John Knox Press, 2008)

www.bellarmine.edu/arc/peacestudiesminor.aspx Description and requirements for the Peace Studies minor at Bellarmine

BLUEGRASS COMMUNITY AND TECHNICAL COLLEGE

http://www.bluegrass.kctcs.edu/Academics/Programs_of_Study Under “Programs of Study,” locate “Associate in Arts” and to the right click on “Focus Areas for AA” to see the requirements for a focus in Peace & Justice Studies

www.peace2day.org Rebecca Glasscock’s Web site containing information about the Annual Peace and Global Citizenship Fairs, Peace Meal Gardens, and Students for Peace and Earth Justice

UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE

Anne Braden
The Wall Between (University of Tennessee Press; 1958, reissued 1999)

Cate Fosl
Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South (new edition 2006, University Press of Kentucky)

Freedom on the Border: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky (co-authored with Tracy E. K’Meyer, University Press of Kentucky, 2009)

Women for All Seasons: The Story of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (University of Georgia Press, 1989, out of print.)

http://al.comm.louisville.edu/abi Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, a program of the Arts and Sciences at the University of Louisville

www.louisville.edu/aliinstitute Muhammad Ali Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of Louisville

OTHER BOOKS ON PEACE AND JUSTICE BY KENTUCKY AUTHORS

Wendell Berry
Citizenship Papers (Washington, D.C., 2003)

T. Kerby Neill and Robert J. Topmiller
Binding Their Wounds: America’s Assault on Its Veterans (Paradigm Publishers, 2011)

Robert J. Topmiller
The Lotus Unleashed: the Buddhist Peace Movement in South Vietnam 1964-66 (University Press of Kentucky, 2006)

Angene and Jack Wilson
Voices from the Peace Corps: Fifty Years of Kentucky Volunteers (University Press of Kentucky 2011)

To read the Kentucky Living September 2011 feature that goes along with this supplement, go to Peacemakers.