Civil Disobedience: A Sacrificial Act of Personal Integrity

Going for a Ride

Revealing no more to us than, “We’re going for a ride,” my father often piled my three brothers, three sisters, and me into our 1968 VW bus on weekends. The mysterious trips over curvy, tree-lined New England back roads terminated at places of historical, literary, or geographical significance-Charlestown’s Bunker Hill Memorial, Salem’s House of Seven Gables, the Hammond Castle in Gloucester, the crook in the Millville road where, “under a spreading chestnut tree,” Longfellow’s village smithy stood, and, more often than not, Walden Pond with its recreation of Henry David Thoreau’s hut.

Perhaps it was on one of these trips to Thoreau’s hideaway that I first heard the term civil disobedience. I had a vague familiarity with it from newspaper headlines about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Vietnam War protests, but I wasn’t emotionally touched by the idea of deliberately breaking the law until I read A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt’s play about Sir Thomas More. I was swept away with admiration for the witty, courageous, and faith-filled English martyr who proclaimed himself “The king’s good servant but God’s first.” Bolt convinced me nothing is more glorious than taking a stand for one’s ideals and being thrown into a dungeon for it. I memorized segments of the play and can still quote them. Later on, when I saw a movie version starring Paul Scofield as More, Robert Shaw as Henry the Eighth, and Orson Welles as Cardinal Wolsey, there was no turning back. With the closing credits of Scofield’s film, I was completely formed as an idealist waiting impatiently for the time when I could sacrifice my freedom for a noble cause.

An Oven Without Walls

But by the time I entered Holy Cross in 1976, the Vietnam War had ended, the draft was discontinued, and civil disobedience seemed passé. You were considered radical if you wrote a letter to the editor. Until campaigns very late in my college days to remove Reserve Oficers’ Training Corps and to divest from SouthAfrica, I had little to squawk about, much less get arrested while protesting on campus. I seemed to be condemned to the lesser heroism of holding more progressive views than the majority of my peers. My biggest sacrifice involved spending a few bucks now and then on magazines like Mother Jones.

That’s when I became familiar with nuclear weapons. One can’t rationally go to the mat for small “e” evil, but the threat of nuclear Armageddon certainly qualifies as big-time EVIL. Better yet, in 1979 I found a flyer put out by the Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Boston specifically condemning the cruise, MX, and Trident missiles. The commission described the Trident submarine as the world’s largest with twenty-four Trident missiles carrying more than three hundred individually targeted nuclear warheads each with explosive yields many times the impact of the The commission quoted Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, who called the Trident “an oven without walls.” As luck would have it, General Dynamics Corporation manufactured these insidious nuclear nightmares in nearby Groton, Connecticut, where civil disobedience would take place during the April 7 christening of the first Trident to be completed, the USS Ohio.

Inspired by the peace and justice committee’s call to action, I recruited two friends, Joe Borkowski and Pat Tam, to go to Voluntown, Connecticut, for required nonviolence training a day before the planned mass demonstration […] A group called the Community for Nonviolent Action ran the training at the A.J. Muste Center on a farm […] Attended by several hundred prospective arrestees, the training opened with an impressive talk by author and scholar Marta Daniels on why the Trident is a destabilizing weapon […] A talk on the philosophy of nonviolent protest, its history in Connetticut, and the tactics we would employ the next day followed Dr. Daniels’ presentation. Trainers answered questions and orchestrated role-playing of arrest scenarios with a special emphasis on the feelings of people expected to attend the launch: Trident workers, invited guests, and the police. To mitigate any self-righteousness we might harbor, trainers encouraged us to take on the role of Trident supporters. encouraged us to take on the role of Trident supporters. The plan included our march to the gate of the General Dynamics Corporation Electric Boat factory in Groton for a silent blockade of the entrance. We heard an outline of prospective legal consequences, in the likely event of our arrest before we went to a Methodist church in New London to eat dinner and roll out sleeping bags for the night.

In a side room of the main sanctuary, Father Dan Berrigan, SJ, famous for his part in the destruction of Vietnam War draft files as one of the Catonsville Nine, offered Mass by candlelight. Jim Dugeon, a young and talented musician, played guitar and sang quite beautifully. After reading the Gospel, Father Dan reflected on his experience watching cancer patients die at Saint Rose’s hospice in Manhattan and how a nuclear war would compound that horror beyond measure. Joe, Pat, and I felt welcomed into an intelligent, creative, and compassionate community of deeply spiritual activists.

The next day’s demonstration surpassed our wildest expectations. Five thousand people marched in silence down Groton’s Main Street to Electric Boat. Five hundred of us sat or knelt on the asphalt in front of the main gate. The only sound was the rhythmic chanting and beating of drums by Buddhist monks. When launch ticket holders approached from the opposite end of Main Street, they seemed affected by the spectacle of so many people putting their bodies between them and the Trident. A single woman screamed a shrill unanswered insult and then all was silent. I felt like I was in an amazing play creating a somber mood that no one could ignore.

For what seemed like a very long time, police did not attempt to remove us, so strong was the spell of the action, but, finally, the chief took out a bullhorn and warned us to end the blockade or be arrested. Minutes later, local and state police officers began placing us one by one under arrest for disorderly conduct and into plastic handcuffs. No one resisted, but, at the same time, no one facilitated his or her removal. We went limp, and the officers carried us to police vans. After several hours in custody, the police released us with our promise to appear for arraignment […] The court continued all the charges without a finding. Our foray into civil disobedience has cost us only a couple of missed chances.

[…] I have been arrested many more times, mostly in opposition to nuclear weapons and war but also against abortion, apartheid in South Africa, and genocide in Darfur. Most of these protests occurred in small groups. Less than half of them resulted in jail sentences. Some were well organized. Others were hopeless screw-ups. I tried to learn from experience but was often surprised at how poorly I predicted any outcome.

Developing a Philosophy of Civil Disobedience

My concept of pacifism extends beyond opposition to all war. I also oppose the death penalty, euthanasia, and abortion. I recognize that very few people choose to take a life lightly and many support doing so because they see no alternatives. I have never employed civil disobedience as some kind of judgment of others nor as a means to make them feel guilty and myself morally superior. Instead, I view civil disobedience as a sacrificial act of personal integrity that I hope initiates a spark in the intellect and conscience of others.

[…] Surprises and screw-ups notwithstanding, over time I’ve developed my own philosophy on civil disobedience. Many of my values were gifted to me by Tom Lewis, a member of the Catonsville Nine with Phil and Dan Berrigan and the godfather of Claire and my oldest son, Justin. Tom used to say, “There is spiritual value in a person being in jail for conscience even if no one knows it.” He showed us the importance of using traditional religious imagery to oppose violence. For Tom, the stations of the cross, rosary, sacraments, bishops, popes, saints, and, most especially, the Bible were integral to peacemaking. The liturgical calendar, especially Good Friday, Easter, and the Feast of the Holy Innocents when Herod killed all the children in Bethlehem, provided key times to protest for Tom, much more important than election day or the Fourth of July. He also taught us to work closely with Buddhists, Jews, Protestants, agnostics, and atheists.

[…]Most importantly, Tom stressed that civil disobedience should never be a first resort to resolve conflict. He believed in employing the least confrontational method necessary to change hearts […] In some cases, we have leafleted or held a weekly vigil for months or even years before risking arrest. I should also stress that the point of civil disobedience is not to be arrested but to change hearts and minds. If the goal can be accomplished without risking arrest, so much the better. There are a hundred times more protests when no one is arrested than when someone is.

[…] Civil disobedience has many aspects, but the one that strikes me most forcefully is the sense of taking a leap of faith, of stepping out of conventionality, and of breathing astonishingly fresh air. It is a kind of freedom that can only be understood by experience. It’s what Rosa Parks felt when she refused to move to the back of the bus and Tom Lewis felt when he burned draft files. It’s not just about marching to a different drummer. It’s doing what we can to persuade others not to march over a cliff. Given its emotional and spiritual impact, not to mention its importance as a remedy for governmental and industrial outrages, civil disobedience is worth doing at least once in one’s life.