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Home , Antimilitarism, Jessie Wallace Hughan

June 30, 2017 Dear Friends,

Thank you for your outpouring of support in response to my recent letter. We are grateful for your continued commitment News from the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute to in these difficult MUSTE times. We’re proud to welcome three new board members to the Muste Institute. Johanna Fernandez is a professor of history, politi- cal economy, and social movements. She founded the Campaign to Bring Mumia VOLUME 24, NUMBER 2 NOTESSUMMER 2017 Home and is working on a book about the Young Lords. Ynestra King is a long- time feminist anti-militarist activist, , writer, and renowned ecofeminist theorist. Diane Tosh, the Institute’s new vice chair, is a longtime anti- and social justice activist who served as acting executive direc- tor of the Institute in 2002-2003. All three began serving on the board in December. MIGRANT JUSTICE PHOTO: In February we bid goodbye and good luck to outgoing vice chair Brian Drolet, with gratitude for his seven years of service to the Muste board. We are in the midst of a new grant cycle, and we received a record number of proposals—nearly 150! There is a lot of great organizing going on. With your help, we’re working hard to direct resources from the to inspired nonviolent action projects. Farmworkers March for Milk with Dignity In gratitude, On June 17, several hundred farmworkers and supporters marched 13 miles from the State House in Montpelier, Vermont to the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury. Their demand? That the ice cream company make good on its two-year-old promise to implement the Milk with Dignity Program and commit to sourcing its milk from farms that uphold the human rights of workers. Heidi Boghosian The CEO of Ben & Jerry’s greeted the marchers and promised the company was “ready to go” with the program. Marchers vowed to keep up the pressure until Ben & Jerry’s signs an agreement. Migrant Justice/Justicia Migrante modeled its Milk with Dignity program on the Fair Food campaign launched by the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which sent its founder, Lucas Benitez, to Vermont for the march. Later that evening, Border Patrol agents arrested local farmworker leaders Esau and Yesenia, pictured here during the march. Migrant Justice organized protests on June 19 to demand their release from detention. It was at least the third time in the past few months that Migrant Justice leaders were targeted for immigration arrests. The Muste Institute supported the Milk with Dignity campaign with a $2,500 grant last December. Kansas City Cold by Terrence Wise “24 hours–Drive Thru Now Open.” I Fast-food worker and movement look out the window; it’s dark. I can leader Terrence Wise crafted his personal feel how cold it is outside just by touch- PHOTO: HEARTLAND AND CENTER FREEDOM FOR JOBS HEARTLAND PHOTO: story during his time with the Kansas ing the glass. Right next to me in the City Speakers Corp, a 24-week class passenger seat is my fiancé, Myosha (I funded by the Muste Institute that call her “Moe”). I can tell she’s cold and trained low-wage workers in story-tell- it’s bothering me. In the very back, I can ing and argument methods. see possessions stacked high - all of our clothes and anything we can carry with Right now it is really, really, cold. It us. And in the row behind us, our 3 girls Terrence Wise joins other “Fight for 15” is a little after 10 o’clock and our purple are resting, as comfortable as they can. leaders sharing their stories with a sold-out Dodge minivan is parked for the night, I angle myself in the driver’s seat, audience at a “Story Slam” in Kansas City in right out in front of my job, Burger searching for comfort where it doesn’t June, hosted by Stand Up KC. King. I can see the marquee still lit up, continued on page 2 2 • Muste Notes Summer 2017

Camping Out for Tenant Rights PHOTO: KIDUS GIRMA PHOTO: Ava Farkas, executive director of Met Council on Housing, speaks at a “Cuomoville” encampment in June, protesting high rents in City and demanding state support for housing justice. Met Council used the Muste shared space to make creative signs for the rally and overnight campout in front of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Manhattan office.

Free at Last! Puerto Rican former political prisoner Oscar López Rivera (right) reaches for a hand squeeze with Muste Board member and Free Oscar movement leader Matt Meyer in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico on May 17. It was Oscar’s first day of freedom after close to 36 years behind bars. The Muste Institute supported a key solidarity demonstration in 2015 demanding the

release of the jailed activist. A groundswell of support MEYER OF MATT COURTESY PHOTO led President Obama to grant Oscar clemency just before leaving office. Since his release, the 74-year- old activist has traveled around Puerto Rico and the . He has testified at the United Nations, calling for a decolonization process that would meet the economic and political needs of all Puerto Rican people. Often called “the Mandela of the Americas,” Oscar is a beloved and unifying force across the island.

Kansas City Cold DeZiana, trying to hold back her tears, ago, we would be here. That is when continued from page 1 whimpering. She hates the cold, she’s Burger King decided to cut my hours. thin like me. What am I supposed to I told them the reduction would lead to exist. I let Moe put her feet underneath do? Say it’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna our eviction but they did it anyway. We my coat. Her feet are strikingly cold and warm up? are just the cost of doing business and it sends a chill through my body. She’s I hear wheezing. I hear heavy breath- when corporate says labor is “too high” shaking, trembling, and I can tell by ing. Man, the cold weather takes a toll you cut. her face that she’s really uncomfortable, when you’re asthmatic, like my daugh- You may think I’m a bad father. You really. ter DeJanee. Right now she’s just strug- might suspect I have a drug problem I haven’t eaten all day but this cold gling to do the simple task of breathing. or that we are lazy parents. But we salami sandwich with this cold mayo, The baby, DeAndrea, doesn’t under- aren’t. We are hardworking Americans is not something I can stomach. I’m stand. I know she’s uncomfortable, whose wages are so low and our jobs depressed. I’m irritated. I feel no hope confused, scared, it’s dark, it’s cold. so unstable, one mishap leads us here. right now. I can’t believe my family is This has got to be a living nightmare for When we fight for living wages and homeless. her. Panic sets in as I hear her crying. BE voices on our jobs, it’s about much more I wonder how Moe feels as a mother. QUIET!!—of course, I can’t say that and than dollars and cents. We are fighting I know she feels like she has failed, the I can’t make her stop. for our humanity and we are demand- same as I feel. I rest my head back and This has got to be the darkest hour ing the honor and respect due to all listen, eyes closed. I hear my oldest, for my family. Who knew four weeks working people. Summer 2017 Muste Notes • 3

A.J. Muste Nat Hentoff, 1925-2017 Memorial Institute Nat Hentoff, a pacifist, 168 Canal Street, 6th Floor historian, free speech advo- New York, NY 10013 cate, writer, and music phone (212) 533-4335 critic, died on January email [email protected] website: www.ajmuste.org 7, 2017—a month before the 50-year anni- Board of Directors versary of A.J. Muste’s James A. Cole Robert T. Taylor, death. Hentoff wrote a Johanna Fernandez Secretary biography of A.J. Muste, Carol Kalafatic Martha Thomases, Chair edited a volume of his Ynestra King Vice essays, and served on the Matt Meyer Diane Tosh, Chair Muste Institute’s advisory Peter Muste Emeritus members: Jill Sternberg Susan Kent Cakars committee. You can honor Nina Streich, David McReynolds his memory—and Muste’s— Treasurer by reading Agitator and Staff The Essays of A.J. Muste. Use Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director the back page order form and Jane Guskin, Program Manager* Sky Hall, Administrative Assistant* for only $20 we’ll send you Salvador Suazo, Superintendent* both books plus five Essay Eric Bachman, Program Associate, INTF Series pamphlets of your choosing. *Represented by the A.J. Muste Staff Union

Where Your Money Goes–Year ending June 30, 2016 Revenue* Expenses Contributions 44% Grants 41% and grants $370,877 (see detail) $338,291 Investment 32% Other program 27% income** $272,418 services $224,963 Literature and 1% Grants Fundraising 5% Contributions other income Grants expenses and Grants $8,520 $43,748 Net assets released 23% Management & 19% from restrictions $189,856 general expenses $159,183 Total income $841,671 Building 7% * Ordinary revenue only, excluding building expenses (net) $56,305 sale proceeds. Total expenses $822,490 **Investment income includes net unrealized gains, with realized losses deducted.

2016 Grants – What You Helped Support Social Justice Fund – 32 grants ($74,300) in the U.S. and beyond for organizing, mobilizing, and educating in favor of immigrant rights, racial justice, worker empowerment, health care access, educational rights, nonviolent movement building, transnational solidarity, land and housing rights, and justice for Palestine; and in opposition to war and , criminalization and mass incarceration, the death penalty, nuclear weapons, and economic injustice. NOVA Fund – 2 grants ($30,000) in Costa Rica and Mexico for indigenous rights and empowerment, environmental organizing, and . Shared space solidarity grants – $30,570 to tenant groups in the Muste shared space for undocumented youth organizing, media justice, anti-war and education, labor solidarity, tenant advocacy, and related work. Sponsored and endowment grants – $204,852 in support for 13 projects in the U.S. and beyond promoting feminism, self- determination, human rights, international justice, and nonviolent resolution of conflicts; opposing war, militarism, , occupation, and displacement; and educating about climate change, nuclear power, and the environment.

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A. J. Muste Memorial Institute A. J. Muste Memorial Institute #2: Barbara Deming – #9: Aldous Huxley – A. J. Muste Memorial Institute #15: David McReynolds ESSAY SERIES A. J. Muste Memorial Institute A. J. Muste MemorialESSAY Institute SERIESA. J. Muste Memorial Institute A. J. Muste Memorial Institute ESSAY SERIES theESSA feministY SERIES connectionESSA Y SERIES ESSAY SERIES TwentiethESSAY SERIES Century – longtime activist with to – On visionary and prolific writer A. J. Muste Memorial Institute the , and Equilibrium – Science,OUT OF PRINT and Peace ESSAY SERIES Socialist Party presidential No. 14 candidate – A Philosophy of #3: Henry David #10: – Nonviolence – the original pacifist, anarchist, activist DAVID Thoreau McREYNOLDS architect of resistance – The Morality of Scientific – On the Duty of Civil Technology; The Psychology A JEANNETTE Disobedience of Being Powerless Philosophy RANKIN Peace Agitator: of “Two Votes The Story of A.J. #4: Jessie Wallace #11: Some Writings on Nonviolence Against , by Nat War” and Muste Hughan – suffragist, peace War Other Hentoff. A 250-page Writings activist, founder of the War – thoughts, poems, tales on Peace biography with many Resisters League – from resisters, including photos, profiling the and Invasion; On Duelling Juanita Nelson, Allen ‘grandfather’ of the Ginsberg and Pete Seeger #5: U.S. #1: Martin Luther King, – minister, labor – America’s leading – fiery orator, anarchist, #7: A. J. Muste – foremost #12: Sidney Lens – Jr. A. J. Muste Memorial Institute A. J. Muste Memorial Institute A. J. Muste Memorial Institute A. J. Muste Memorial Institute activist, pacifist and apostle of human dignity – agitatorESSAY SERIESfor peace andESSA Y SERIES20th CenturyESSA PacifistY SERIES peaceESSA andY SERIES labor activist, Your Enemies, Letter liberation – Preparedness: theoretician and activist, socialist, occasional from a Birmingham resister. Introduction Loving Your Enemies; Letter by Larry Gara. from a Birmingham Jail; The Road to Universal minister, socialist – Who Has political candidate – six Jail and Declaration of Declaration of Independence Slaughter; The Individual, the Spiritual Atom Bomb? articles spanning three Independence from the Society and the State decades on the state of War in Vietnam. from the War in Vietnam. #8: On of Also in Spanish – see #13. the U.S. labor movement #6: Liberation – three essays #14: Jeannette Rankin Wear Your – courageous leader of on pacifist responses to #13: (Spanish) – first woman in Congress, Peace Shirt. Germany’s democratic armed OUTfreedom OF PRINTstruggles, Martin Luther King, suffragist, pacifist – “Two Muste Institute t-shirts socialist movement – including analysis of Jr. – Spanish language Votes Against War” and are black cotton with Prison Letters Gandhi’s position translation of Loving Other Writings on Peace a four-color geometric design and the words: “There is no way to peace, The Essays of A.J. Muste peace is the way – A.J. Edited by Nat Hentoff, preface by Jo Ann O. Robinson. Originally issued in 1967, this 500-page Muste” Available in large edition includes Muste’s “Notes for an Autobiography,” plus essays on pacifism, civil rights, trade and extra large. Shirts unionism and foreign policy, written between 1905 and 1966. are made in the U.S.A.

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