Jan. 8, 2016 Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet on Waging Peace & speaker David Hartsough
Tuesday, January 5th, 2016WAGING PEACE
The Hilo Peace Vigil is now in week #746. That’s approaching 15 years which seems like a long time. But this week some special people with peace activist longevity be joining the vigil. David and Jan Hartsough and David’s brother and wife. David, a Quaker, has written a book entitled WAGING PEACE: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist. It includes his activism that goes back more than 60 years, including his meeting Martin Luther King in 1956. I highly recommend reading his book, available through http://www.peaceworkersus.org/ and come hear David talk after this week’s Peace Vigil.
David’s book, WAGING PEACE is what we call in Hawaii a Talk-Story book. It’s stories of working for justice, peace and walking more lightly on the earth that inspires. I’ll cite just one story that really touched me. It occurred in June of 1960. David, a white boy, was just 20 years old. He was attending Howard University, with a predominantly African American student body, and joined a civil rights lunch counter sit in at the People’s Drug Store in Arlington, Virginia. The hostility was quick and severe. David writes “People spat on us. They shoved lit cigarettes down our shirts. One angry man threw a firecracker at us. They kicked us off the stools and punched us in our chests and stomachs so violently that we fell to the floor.” But then things got worse. “I heard a voice behind me say, ‘Get out of this store in two seconds, or I’m going to stab this through your heart.’ I glanced behind me at a man with the most terrified look of hatred I had ever seen. His eyes blazed, his jaw quivered, and his shaking hand held a switchblade –about half an inch from my heart… I turned around and tried my best to smile. Looking him in the eye, I said to him, ‘Friend, do what you believe is right, and I will still try to love you.’ Both his jaw and his hand dropped. Miraculously, he turned away and walked out of the store.”
David said “That was the most powerful experience of my twenty years of life. It confirmed my belief in the power of love, the power of goodness, the power of God working through us to overcome hatred and violence. I had a profound sense that nonviolence really works… It became the way I wanted to relate to other human beings, a way of life, a way of working for change.”
David has been walking his talk, and working for nonviolent change his whole life. He is now 75 and has been arrested more than 100 times for nonviolent actions for justice, peace and protecting the earth. His life is a testament of the difference one life can make.
The above is just one of many riveting stories in David’s book. Come here more of David’s stories. He will be sharing some of them at a Peace Activists Potluck dinner 5:45 PM on Friday, January 8, 2016 at the Kea’au Community Center, located behind the Kea’au Police Station and Bay Clinic in Kea’au after the Friday Hilo Peace Vigil. The gathering is free and open to all. Bring a pot luck dish if you can.
End War, Poverty, and the Climate Crisis!
1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties.
4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, etc.
5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Contact: Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action
P.O. Box 489 Kurtistown, Hawai’i 96760
Phone (808) 966-7622. Email: ja@malu-aina.org
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Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (Jan. 8, 2016 – 746th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office
