P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA, 19081-- brandywine@juno.com (610) 544-1818

JANUARY 15, 2007

MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE

AT LOCKHEED MARTIN

"How long?. Not long, because the arch of moral universe is long but always bends towards justice", Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On January 15, 2007,  we observed the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

PEACE 2007, BRANDYWINE PEACE COMMUNITY TURNS 30

Thirty years have now passed since the Brandywine Peace Community's first observance of Dr. King's birthday, years before it became a national holiday.Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a close associate of Dr. King, commenting on Dr. King's murder, April 4, 1968, and the establishment of the King Day holiday, once said: "its easier to build a monument, than it is a movement." 

The Brandywine Peace Community observed the birth of Dr. King all these years as part of a campaign of nonviolent resistance to war-making -
first, for twenty years at General Electric, and now, for more than a decade, at Lockheed Martin - to enact a memorial to the man and the
struggle for justice and peace and, moreover, to continue building a movement of nonviolent action for peace.

Nearly 100 people gathered as we do throughout  the year at the Valley Forge/King of Prussia site of Lockheed Martin.  This year, however, the
King Day observance was in the immediate wake of  the 3000th U.S. casualty in Iraq and Bush's announcement of an
escalating war, and a recognition of more war, more weapons, more weapons profits by the Iraq war's chief weapons profiteer, Lockheed Martin.

The observance, see program below, began with a reading of names of the war dead - U.S. and Iraqi - and the tolling of our bell of peace.   We
then heard from Professor Alan Dawley, historian, who in the early 60's, as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was the editor of the Mississippi Free Press. Professor Dawley spoke of the evolution of Dr. King organizing focus from civil rights to human rights
and peace, repeating "you don't remember Dr. King if all you remember is...".  Then poet RW Dennen read his You Had a Dream poem about DR. King. We listened to excerpts of Dr. King sermons and speeches that traced that evolution and then participated in the King Day litany, that had as responses portions of Dr. King's 1964 Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, and which concluded:

As an audio broadcast of Dr. King's "Time to Break Silence" Speech, April 4, 1967 (exactly one year before his death), those prepared to face
arrest for nonviolent civil disobedience began in Lockheed Martin's main driveway entrance to build a "memorial to Dr. King and the ongoing
struggle for peace and justice."  A large, heavy black coffin cloth with the words: "WAR", "POVERTY", "IRAQ", "DEMOCRACY" in bold was laid onto the blacktop. A large picture of Dr. King was held over the cloth as we formed the memorial: chain and ashes, empty shoes and boots, a light candle, and roses. 

Banners reading: "Remember King's Dream: Make War No More", "We Declare Peace", and "Resist Lockheed Martin, the face of war-making today" were stretched across the driveway entrance on both sides of the memorial. Eleven people vigiled in driveway, as the voice of Dr. King echoed over the crowd of demonstrators, passersby, the line of police and Lockheed Martin security guards that had closed the driveway throughout the demonstration.

As the broadcast ended, the line of vigilers turned and began walking with the banners  toward the police/security line and the Lockheed Martin
weapons complex stating: "Please let the spirit of peace pass, let the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. pass!". All were stopped, warned to leave, and arrested by Upper Merion Township police. 

The eleven arrested, taken to the police station, and released on Disorderly Conduct citations were: MJ Gentile, Beth Friedlan, Mary Jo
McArthur, Rev. Patrick Sieber, Jackie Baumann, Tom Mullian, Robert Daniels II, Arthur Landis, Tim Chadwick, Rich Conti, and Bob Smith.

Galen Tyler, director of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union [KWRU], concluded the demonstration with remarks on the need to continue the
relations between social justice and peace efforts, like the El March which Brandywine and KWRU sponsored just days before the Fall election -
"Time to Break the Silence: End Poverty, Stop the War". 

Continue building the living memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the ongoing struggle for peace and justice. 


Martin Luther King Day of Nonviolent Resistance to the War & Lockheed Martin (Iraq War #1 Profiteer, worlds largest weapons corporation, the U.S. chief nuclear weapons and Star Warcontractor) Lockheed Martin, Valley Forge, PA 

Throughout the demonstration, we will observe the spirit and discipline of nonviolence - refraining from the violence of fist, tongue, and heart  (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

 Vigil with banners and signs Reading Names of U.S. and Iraqi war dead, Bell-tolling, Speakers:
*Professor Alan Dawley, Mississippi Free Press editor in the early 60's, Historian of American society and politics, professor of history at the
College of New Jersey, and member of Historians Against the War;
    
Audio broadcast of excerpts of sermons and speeches of Dr. King (and collection for the Brandywine Peace Community)
           
Litany of the King Day Message  (*from Dr. Kings Nobel Peace Prize Speech, 1964)

Reader: More than 3,000 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the U.S. war of occupation began on March 19, 2003.  More than 25,000 have been wounded and maimed, forced to carry the memory and consequence of the lies and violence of a policy of war.  The British Medical Journal, the Lancet, now estimates that more than 650,000 Iraqis have been killed. The dead of this war are not only victims of a particular policy built on lies but also the casualties of a far deeper disease - the ambition of empire and the greed of militarism.  Lockheed Martin is the chief profiteer of the escalating war in Iraq which has cost more than $350 billion and continues to cost $6 billion a month. Today, we remember a martyred prophet, a drum major for justice, a peacemaker, and nonviolent revolutionary. Today, we stand before Lockheed Martin, the world largest weapons producing corporation, remembering all the victims of war and weapons building, remembering all the casualties of social and environmental neglect, remembering and mourning all that suffer and die on the altar of corporate greed, empire, and violence.

Response (all) *...Violence is immoral because it  thrives on hatred rather than love...Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates
bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers... I refuse to accept the view that humanity is to tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace can never become a reality... (Dr. Martin King, Jr. 1964)

Reader: We can never forget that it was the United States that created and unleashed the very definition and reference for the terror of our
age, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction: nuclear weapons.  In 1967, Dr. King called the U.S. government the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. One U.S. Trident submarine (there are 18)carrying 24 missiles, with eight nuclear warheads per missile, is capable of
delivering 1,000 Hiroshimas. Lockheed Martin manages much of the U.S. nuclear bomb complex and is the manufacturer of Trident missiles.  99% of all high level radio active material in the U.S. has been generated by nuclear weapons production. Plutonium, which fuels nuclear bombs, has a toxic life of 240,000 years 10,000 human generations. Nuclear weapons have poisoned our earth, our spirits, our imagination and claim on the future with the threat of unimaginable death and destruction.

Response (all) *...I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell o
thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality... (*Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., 1964)

Reader: The U.S. Military Budget now receives more than a half a trillion dollars annually for war and the Pentagons global reach.  Paid for
through supplemental spending bills, the cost of  war  in Iraq is addition to the  military budget.  The culture of militarism and war, and
the economy of war which sustains it, is the very existence of Lockheed Martin. More weapons; more war: Aegis warships and cruise missiles,
Trident missiles, Joint Strike Stealth Fighter (the Lockheed Martin warplane which at $200 billion is the largest military contract in human
history) Star Wars and plans for the full militarization of space. The names, descriptions, and details are as endless as the policy of war from
which Lockheed Martin profits. As Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler famously wrote in 1935 War is a racket...It is the only one in which the
profits are reckoned in dollars and losses in lives. Lockheed Martin reported that revenues for its last quarter rose by  41%, with $8.4
billion in profits. The need for emergency shelter is growing in cities across the country. Homeless in the United States is actually on the rise for the first time since the Reagan Administration. An estimated 3.5 million people in the U.S. are likely to experience homelessness this winter. The New York Times reports that more than 34 million people in the U.S. live in poverty. Almost one in five children under the age of five in the U.S.
are poor.  Gandhi called poverty the greatest form of violence.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often referred to the evil triplets of American
society: racism, materialism, and militarism. Every weapon produced by Lockheed Martin means billions of dollars transferred from the public
treasury to private wealth, from human need to corporate greed. Every weapon produced by Lockheed Martin means another bombing run, another cruise missile attack, another war.

Response (all) * ...I believe that even amid todays mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe
that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nation, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among all... (*Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964)

Reader: If there be such a thing as real human security, then it must rest on something more than what we can do for ourselves with muscle or
weapons, something that has to do relationship with others and the earth, with fairness, with honoring the commonweal and the common wealth, with being the neighbor not the overlord. And, that means justice, and democracy, and truth.  Dr. King would say: If you want peace, work for
justice.  Bombs may win wars and bring the false peace of  victory, but justice will never be achieved with bombs and cruise missiles,  with Abu
Graibs or Guantanamo Bays, with Star Wars weapons or a policies of war. No, if you want peace not empire, or wealth, or oil markets and arms
contracts -  then work for justice.

Response (all) *  ...I refuse to accept the idea that the isness of our present nature makes us morally incapable of reaching up for the
eternal oughtness that forever confronts us. I refuse to accept the idea that we are mere flotsam and jetsam in a river of life, unable to
influence the unfolding events which surround us... (*Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964)

Reader: Today, we bring to Lockheed Martin a memorial to Dr. King and the struggle for justice and peace, a memorial of chains and ashes, empty boots and shoes, and flowers, a memorial for all victims of war, and all the casualties of the economy of war - the war dead, the homeless,
hungry, forgotten and forsaken who die the slow death of poverty, racism, sexism.  We choose to walk in the memory and steps of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We  honor Dr. Kings philosophy of nonviolent direct action and his opposition to injustice and war. We re-affirm our commitment to resisting war in Iraq and the war-maker, Lockheed Martin. Our memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is that we will continue to nonviolently resist the injustice that is war, and the making of war that is Lockheed Martin.

Response (all)* ...I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and
culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered people have torn down
other-centered can build up and that one day humanity will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and
nonviolent redemptive good will be proclaimed the rule of the land...and I still believe that We Shall Overcome...
(*Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1964)     

Broadcast of excerpts of  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s  A Time to Break Silence Speech, Riverside Church, April 4, 1967, and Memorial to Dr.
King & the ongoing struggle for peace and justice,  Nonviolent Civil Disobedience: Those (and only those!) planning and prepared to face
arrest for nonviolent civil disobedience will with building the memorial in the driveway entrance and proceeding onto Lockheed Martin.  All others please remain on  the sidewalk as bell tolls.  

(Chants: Its About Peace...Its About Justice   For peace, Stop Lockheed Martin;  For justice, Make War No More)

Photos courtesy of Tim Chadwick. See all Tim's photos at http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=tczappafan&aid=576460762384893976&pid=&wtok=owWcB1pDD8iT7ZXhwQvAkg--&ts=1169015456&.src=ph

Read James Carroll's article "An Unrealized Dream of Justice"

Posted on Tue, Jan. 16, 2007 Finding ways to make a day of service They read and sang, built and prepared, painted and cooked, to mark the holiday. By Jeff Gammage, Lini S. Kadaba and Kristen A. Graham Inquirer Staff Writers On what would have been his 78th birthday, the Philadelphia region and the nation honored the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. yesterday with remembrance and reflection, proclamation and protest. About 55,000 people volunteered for work in more than 600 projects, many focused on emergency preparedness, during the 12th annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service. They used their day off to read to children and sing hymns to seniors, to build up food banks and moral fortitude. They collected books, painted murals, assembled meals for the needy. The events were to culminate last night with a Philadelphia Orchestra tribute concert at Martin Luther King High School on Stenton Avenue. "While we can talk about what we should do," said the Rev. Richelle Gunter, assistant to the pastor of St. Paul's Baptist Church in West Chester, "we really demonstrate Dr. King's legacy, his beliefs, by actually taking action." In Atlanta, the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day since the death of King's widow, Coretta, was marked by a service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King preached. The church's Rev. Raphael G. Warnock denounced the war in Iraq, just as King, toward the end of his life, condemned the war in Vietnam. And in Washington, President Bush stopped at a predominantly poor, minority high school near the White House and joined volunteers in painting the building. At the 31st annual All Faiths Service at Zion Baptist Church yesterday morning, Mayor Street asked a pointed question: How would King feel if he came to Philadelphia today? He would be pleased by the economic growth, the mayor said. But King would have another reaction - revulsion toward the violence in the streets. "I think Dr. King would say there's not enough love in the city of Philadelphia," the mayor said. "We must make a commitment to respect the sanctity of life," Street told 400 people at the North Philadelphia church. Everyone must join in fighting the "failure of society" that results in violence. "That is what Dr. King would have us do." Twenty miles away, in West Chester, volunteers from St. Paul's and other congregations put King's philosophy into action by helping with crafts projects at the Care Center for Christ preschool and the Gaudenzia's Kindred House, a shelter for women and children. "We've chosen not to sit, not to catch a sale, but to serve," said Gunter. At the Care Center on Matlack Street, volunteers outnumbered those they came to help. Maddie Bexler, Haley McLaughlin and Amber Hontz, all 9, surrounded Zayah McLain, 6, who attends the center. After a few moments of awkwardness, Zayah settled at a table to make a decorative door hanger with the guidance of the older girls. Before long, the talk focused on sleepovers and favorite colors. In King of Prussia, outside the entrance to defense contractor Lockheed Martin, about 40 antiwar protesters gathered behind a banner that read, "Remember King's Dream - Make War No More." After speeches and the tolling of a bell, some walked forward, toward security guards and police officers who flanked the entrance to the facility. "Please let the spirit of peace pass! Please let the spirit of Martin Luther King pass!" called Bob Smith, a leader of the Brandywine Peace Community. Eleven of the war demonstrators were charged with defiant trespass for trying to disrupt work at the company, an act organizers said was inspired by King's strategy of direct, nonviolent action. In South Jersey, the Right Rev. Vashti Murphy McKenzie, the first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, energized a gathering of 400 at Rowan University's annual King breakfast. Her words, more sermon than speech, invoked the challenge of childhood dares. "I dare you to go in the right direction that will take you to the destination that God has for us all," McKenzie told a cheering crowd. "I dare you to dream big and bold." The breakfast was expected to raise about $12,000 for the William H. Myers Scholarship Endowment Fund, which benefits minority students. In Chester, the day of service has often drawn hundreds of volunteers but produced "no quality interaction between the people living here and the people coming here," said resident Bill Nix, chairman of the organizing committee. "It was like someone coming into your living room to help clean up your house." So this year the emphasis was on one-on-one contact. At the Salvation Army center on 15th Street, children joined in activities aimed at teaching them about King and the time he spent in the Chester area. From 1948 to 1951, King studied at Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, a few blocks from the Salvation Army. Crozer, said Alonzo Cavin, a retired Widener University professor and Chester native who organized the education sessions, gave King "the tools for social change. One could argue, 'No Crozer, no Dr. King as we knew him.' He spent the formative years of his life here." In East Germantown, 58-year-old Constance Lee dipped a slender brush into a cup of blue paint, preparing to make her contribution to a Mural Arts Program project in honor of King. Lee, of North Philadelphia, was among 3,000 volunteers who went to Martin Luther King High School for the region's signature service event. "There's so much enthusiasm," Lee said. The school, where 40 service projects were scheduled, was alive with activity: teenagers hammering on a playhouse for children, volunteers stuffing emergency-preparedness backpacks, children writing letters to soldiers in Iraq. "It makes me feel good to do something good," said Lee, who works in a mailroom at the University of Pennsylvania. "You don't have to have a lot of talent or money to give back." Carolyn Johnson, 55, of West Oak Lane, sat at a table watching a little boy color a picture. "I came for my grandson," she said. "So many of our children don't know about Dr. King, and if they just understood peace and being helpful to other people, this world would be a better place." Marcus Hargrove, 4, paused and looked at his grandmother. He said he knew about King. "He was a teacher," said Marcus. "He taught people not to fight." Contact staff writer Jeff Gammage at 610-313-8110 or jgammage@phillynews.com. Contributing to this report were Inquirer staff writers Melanie Burney, Vernon Clark, Dan Hardy and Rusty Pray. It also contains information from the Associated Press.

01/16/2007 War protesters out in force By: WILLIAM BENDER , wbender@delcotimes.com Antiwar currents ran strongly through the Delaware Valley on what would have been the 78th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., who during the Vietnam War described the American government as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." This year's holiday commemorating the Nobel Peace Prize recipient came days after President Bush announced a plan to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, where U.S. forces are struggling to tamp down sectarian violence nearly four years after the March 2003 invasion. Eleven people were arrested Monday at Lockheed Martin's Valley Forge facility during a protest led by the Swarthmore-based Brandywine Peace Community. About 75 protesters participated in the demonstration opposing the Iraq war. "We believe that his message would be summarized in the expression 'Make war no more,'" Robert Smith, the community's staff coordinator and founder, said of King. "In essence, Dr. King gave his life for justice, for peace and for nonviolence, and what we attempted to do in coming to Lockheed Martin on Martin Luther King Day is to enact that message." Smith, Thomas Mullian of Media, and Rich Conti of Rutledge were among those arrested for disorderly conduct when they walked onto the defense contractor's property. The protesters targeted Lockheed, calling the company the Iraq war's "chief profiteer." Brandywine members were joined by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, an advocacy group for the poor and homeless, and Alan Dawley, a history professor who edited the Mississippi Free Press in the mid-1960s and was active with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The protesters built a memorial for King and recited the names of those who have died in the war - both Americans and Iraqis. They played King's April 4, 1967, Riverside Church speech in which he denounced the Vietnam War. "When you read that speech you could substitute, at any point, Iraq for Vietnam and it would still be timely," Smith said. Iraq surfaced twice Monday in Chester, where King once served on the staff of Calvary Baptist Church. During his keynote speech, the Rev. Johnnie Monroe said he believed King, "if he were alive today, would be speaking out against the war in Iraq" in the same way he opposed Vietnam. Allison Dorsey, a Swarthmore College history professor, lamented the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been spent on the war effort. "We know that our schools are in crisis and that our resources of the nation, which should be going to infrastructure, to hospitals, to health care, are going to an international conflict declared illegal by the U.N.," Dorsey said. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service estimated last year that the Iraq war has been costing American taxpayers almost $2 billion a week.

©DelcoTimes 2007