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May/June 2006 Obituaries Anne Braden
Born in 1924 in Louisville, Kentucky, and reared mostly in Alabama, Braden grew up at a time when white southerners almost never questioned racial segregation and discrimination, but felt they were entitled to privileges just by being white. She saw the harsh reality of southern racial apartheid in the mid-1940s when she started her career as a newspaper reporter in Alabama and covered the Birmingham courthouse. In 1947 she met Carl Braden, who grew up poor and imparted to her the idea that one could fight injustice, not simply tolerate or even abhor it. As a team, they never stopped being journalists, but they used the power of the printed word to expose inequality and to encourage resistance. In that era, their radicalism earned them ostracism, threats, and even sedition charges because many believed them to be traitors to their race as well as to their country. In 1975, Carl died prematurely of a heart attack. In the more than 30 years since, Anne dedicated herself even more unceasingly to racial justice – forsaking comfort, retirement, or even rest. Her life touched nearly every social justice movement of the 20th century and now the 21st, with her message always the same: because white supremacy is at the center of U.S. history, you can’t solve any problem without fighting racism, and that fight is white people’s business too. In the words of one of the freedom songs she loved so well, Braden jumped “that freedom train” and stayed on it. She saw the best in each of us and in our communities, and she demands still that we fulfill that promise. - Catherine Fosl [Ed.: Read Anne Braden’s article, “Finding the Other America,” in the Jan/Feb 2006 issue of Fellowship magazine.] Caleb Foote Caleb Foote, 88, a conscientious objector and law professor who advocated for criminal rights, died in Santa Rosa, California on March 4, 2006. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in1917, he attended Harvard University, where he edited the Harvard Crimson, graduating in 1941. The same year he was hired by the Fellowship of Reconciliation to open a Northern California office to promote pacifism at the advent of World War II. A year earlier, his draft board had denied his conscientious objector status, stating that despite his Quaker roots, his argument was based more on humanism than religious principles. Foote refused an order to report to an alternative service work camp, and in 1943 was convicted of violations of the Selective Service Act. He served six months in a federal prison camp, then returned to FOR and focused much of his energy on opposing the internment of Japanese Americans. In 1945, Foote was sentenced for a second time for draft law violations, and served a year at a federal prison. He was pardoned by President Harry Truman. From 1948-50, Foote served as executive director of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. Motivated by the injustices he saw in the criminal justice system, Foote then attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School, graduating in 1956. He taught at law schools in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and California, and was known for his work outside the classroom, becoming a leader in bail reform. He argued that the bail system was biased against the poor, and even called it inherently unconstitutional, in part for its burden on falsely accused defendants. Following his retirement from teaching, he continued to work on peace and justice issues, directing a study of California’s corrections system, which showed its percentage of state expenditures rising dramatically as higher education funds fell, and also getting involved in local conservations issues. Thomas Fox
Born in 1951 in Dayton, Tennessee, Fox was turned into a peace activist by the events of September 11, 2001. A Quaker since childhood, he was running a grocery in Washington when the attacks occurred, and he spent the next 20 months deeply contemplating how he should react. In August 2004, Fox gave up his job to become a full-time worker for CPT. He specifically asked to be sent to Iraq. His work there included taking statements about the abuse of Iraqi detainees by coalition soldiers, meeting Sunni and Shi'i leaders, working with refugees and children in schools, helping to set up a Muslim Peacemaker Team, and sending back reports to people in the West. In October 2005, Fox, Norman Kember from England, and Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden were seized by gunmen. During the following months the kidnappers released a series of videos showing the hostages and accusing them of being spies. There were widespread appeals for their release, including many from Muslim leaders. However, hopes for the men’s survival lessened as the months went on. Two days after the release of a video on March 7, 2006 showing the other three CPT captives, Fox’s body was found. A fortnight later, on March 23, the three remaining captives were freed through a joint action of Iraqi and coalition forces, without violence. Among the countless testimonies to Fox’s witness, CPT recalled: “He was known for his deep commitment to nonviolence and his belief in the power of love to overcome violence. Tom went to Iraq to work for justice and dignity for Iraqis.” Evelyn Montvila Evelyn Morse Montvila, 81, a social activist on numerous peace and justice issues, died in Massachusetts on February 7, 2006. Born in 1924 in Weymouth, Massachusetts, she was considered a "woman ahead of her time," serving as a single mother to four children, attending college at an early age, working in government research laboratories, being a world traveler, and volunteering for diverse social service organizations. Montvila devoted her life to enriching the lives of others. Her work with children was endless: teaching reading at the Job Corps of Wellfleet in the 1960s and English in the Civilian Conservation Corps; serving as president of the Children's Protective Services of Cape Cod in the 1970s; and helping to save Head Start on the Cape. She was active in advocating for affordable and integrated housing long before that was considered a social issue. She participated in countless peace vigils and spoke out against military bases on the Cape. And she wrote poetry, inspiring others to support tolerance and social justice. Montvila joined the Cape Cod Chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in 1980, and served as its treasurer for more than a decade. She received the chapter's Olive Branch Award in 2004. She was also the recipient of the 2005 regional NAACP award for equal opportunity for all persons.
Richard Wangen
Richard Harvey Wangen, 81, passed away in Brazil on March 15, 2006. Born in Harvey, North Dakota in 1924, as a young man he served in the U.S. Army during World War II in the Philippines and Japan from 1944-46, and then entered seminary in Iowa. He married Dorothy Weiblen in 1953, and was ordained a Lutheran priest in 1956. The same year, the Lutheran World Federation sent Wangen to Brazil as a missionary. There in the 1970s he met nonviolence activists Jean Goss and Hildegard Goss-Meyer from the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) when they came to Latin America to help get the Secretariado Nacional de Justiça e Não Violência started. This group was later named Serviço de Paz e Justiça (SERPAJ), and he and other representatives went to India, Israel, and England for encounters promoting South-South dialogue. Wangen was responsible for beginning the Peace Educators Groups and also brought the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) to Brazil; it now works around the nation in schools, prisons, government agencies, and many other institutions. He was instrumental in the founding of SERPAZ (Service for Peace), which provides peace education training; the Support Group for the Prevention of HIV/AIDS and Its Victims; and the People with Disabilities Christian Support Group. In memoriam, his family wrote: “Richard touched many hundreds of lives, planting seeds of workers in the struggle for peace and justice. May this harvest bloom and blossom ever stronger. We thank the Lord for his witness of faith and perseverance.” Frederick Boyd Williams
Canon Frederick B. Williams, 66, whose ministry as an Episcopal priest impacted his Harlem community as well as the national and world, died in Manhattan on April 4, 2006 of a heart attack. He was born in 1939 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and entered Morehouse College at 15. He earned a second bachelor’s degree from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, and a doctorate from Colgate Rochester Divinity School.
After serving congregations in Washington, D.C., and Michigan, Williams moved in 1971 to Church of the Intercession, considered the most beautiful neo-Gothic church in New York City and a worshipping community that occupies a central place in Harlem life. There Williams took on numerous social justice issues, and was a founder and chairman of Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement, an interfaith consortium that has developed more than 1,900 housing units and 40 commercial spaces. He defended young black men in civil rights cases in a racially-polarized New York City, and also spoke out in defense of gays and lesbians, an issue that was anathema to many black Christian leaders. He also challenged the African-American religious community to address HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s. In a 1991 interview with The New York Times, Williams said, “People didn’t want to be identified with the crisis. It was seen as God’s retribution for bad behavior on the part of drug abusers. And it was seen primarily as a white problem, a white gay men’s problem.” By 1993, he observed that black clergy members were stepping up to the challenge. “What has changed is that all of us know, or will know in the next 12 months, someone who has died of AIDS,” he said. His work in support of political liberation movements earned him many friends around the world, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Williams was named honorary canon of the cathedral in Gaborone, Botswana, for his solidarity work on behalf of the anti-apartheid movement and other African justice causes. ©2006 Fellowship of Reconciliation
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Although she liked to think of herself as ordinary, Anne McCarty Braden was an extraordinary woman. As Reverend Louis Coleman said recently, “No one can fill her shoes.” Anne Braden was a white woman who wanted racial justice, and she devoted her entire adult life to that vision.
Tom Fox, 54, died in Baghdad, Iraq in March 2006 while serving on a Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT). His body was found on March 9, 2006 in western Baghdad.