Peace Studies

Martin Luther King’s Northern New York Legacy

January 19, 2026 by Lawrence P. Gooley Leave a Comment

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and if you lived through the 1960s, you’ll never forget that turbulent decade. Even turbulent is putting it mildly: weekly classroom drills for nuclear attacks (Get under my desk? What the heck is this thing made of?); riots over race, poverty, the draft, and the Vietnam War; the assassinations of JFK, King, and Bobby Kennedy; and so much more.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a leading figure of those times, beloved and hated nationally and internationally. Love him or hate him, he was remarkable. Against the worst of odds, he effected change through peaceful protest. The impact was clear, even here in Northern New York. [Read more…] about Martin Luther King’s Northern New York Legacy

Non-Violent Resistance During the American Revolution

October 15, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Fort Plain Museum & Historical Park has announced the winner of their inaugural James Kirby Martin Book Prize, Jane E. Calvert’s Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson (Oxford Univ. Press, 2024). The Prize is given in honor of Martin, an 18th century historian and museum supporter who died unexpectedly this year. Martin’s posthumously published final book, also on the American Revolution, has also just been released.

Quaker pacifist John Dickinson (1732-1808) of Pennsylvania and Delaware, one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, was an important early leader of the resistance to British rule before the outbreak of the American revolution and among the first to advocate civil disobedience as a form of protest. [Read more…] about Non-Violent Resistance During the American Revolution

Anti-Racist Educators to be Honored Monday in NYC

September 25, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

On Monday, September 29th, Peace Action Fund of New York State (PAFNYS) will present its annual William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Peacemaker Awards to lifelong educator and former NY-16 Congressman, Jamaal Bowman, and anti-racist educator and activist, Jesse Hagopian.

The awards ceremony and reception will begin at 6 pm at Scandinavia House in New York City, and will also be livestreamed for those who cannot attend in person. [Read more…] about Anti-Racist Educators to be Honored Monday in NYC

Poems, Books & Bullets: The Seeger Family & World War One

May 11, 2025 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Musicologist and composer Charles Louis Seeger Jr., a pacifist and conscientious objector, was the father of folk singers Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger and Peggy Seeger all of whom were associated with anti-war movements later in the twentieth century. His younger brother Alan Seeger was a Greenwich Village poet and bohemian who had settled in Paris in 1912.

When Germany declared war on France he joined the French Foreign Legion and was killed in 1916 in action at the Battle of the Somme. His writings were published posthumously and would cement his reputation as an American war poet. In France, his memory is revered to this day. [Read more…] about Poems, Books & Bullets: The Seeger Family & World War One

The False Armistice of World War One

March 11, 2025 by Bill Greer Leave a Comment

At 11:56 on the morning of November 7, 1918, the United Press Association in New York City received a cable from its Paris agent. “Urgent. Armistice Allies Germany signed, eleven morning. Hostilities ceased.” Three minutes later the message passed the censor, and minutes after that the news hit the street. “WAR OVER,” screamed the New York Evening World in its biggest type ever. [Read more…] about The False Armistice of World War One

1904: A Peace Obelisk Erected on Diamond Island, Lake George

December 23, 2024 by Joseph W. Zarzynski Leave a Comment

In 1901, Saratoga Springs’ Katrina Trask (1853–1922) purchased Lake George’s Diamond Island for the reported sum of $750. Three years later in 1904, Ms. Trask, an ardent pacifist, funded the creation of a large granite peace obelisk that was installed at the north end of the island. [Read more…] about 1904: A Peace Obelisk Erected on Diamond Island, Lake George

New York City Civil Rights History Resources

February 7, 2024 by Alan J. Singer Leave a Comment

The New York Civil Rights History website has primary sources for teachers and students on histories of oppression, ableism, racism, and resistance, material that is often left out of the curriculum.

The project was inspired by New York City high school student activists who wanted to better understand the history of their city and their schools. [Read more…] about New York City Civil Rights History Resources

The Hawleys, Opposition to the War of 1812 and the Church of the Presidents

November 27, 2023 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

The American artist Wilhelmina Douglas Hawley (Perth Amboy, NJ 1860 – Rijsoord, Netherlands 1958), my great-grandmother, lived a long and interesting life. Her artistic career and family history has fascinated me since I was a young girl.

Wilhelmina’s ancestors were English and Scottish migrants, who moved to the east coast of the United States and Canada in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. [Read more…] about The Hawleys, Opposition to the War of 1812 and the Church of the Presidents

Jane Addams, Alice Hamilton & The Hague Women’s Congress

April 26, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Berlin, May 1915. Three feminists on an historical mission — Jane Addams and New York native Alice Hamilton from the United States, and Aletta Jacobs from the Netherlands — meet Wilbur H. Durborough. The American photographer and filmmaker had traveled to Berlin with his cameraman, Irving G. Ries, to shoot footage for his war documentary On the Firing Line with the Germans (1915). [Read more…] about Jane Addams, Alice Hamilton & The Hague Women’s Congress

David Lowe Dodge: The Merchant Peacemaker

January 24, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

While carrying a large sum of money on a business trip in 1805, the well-to-do city of New York merchant, David Low Dodge, who had been fast asleep in a tavern, was suddenly awakened by the noise of someone jiggling the lock to his bedroom door. Startled by the rattling doorknob and as the door slowly opened, Dodge, not taking any chances, quietly turned and reached for the pistol he always carried for protection.

And then, just before he was about to discharge his pistol, he recognized the suspected intruder as the innkeeper who had come to prepare the room for other guests. [Read more…] about David Lowe Dodge: The Merchant Peacemaker

The Red Scare: A Personal History

June 29, 2022 by Anthony F. Hall 2 Comments

The Seagle Festival will present the contemporary opera “Fellow Travelers” in Schroon Lake, NY August 3rd through 6th.

“Fellow Travelers” is set in the Washington, DC of the 1950s, as the anti-communist crusades of Richard Nixon, Joseph McCarthy and their ilk infiltrate and all but overwhelm every department, agency and office in government.

I can not help but reminded of my own family’s experience with “the Red Scare” during the administration of President Harry Truman. [Read more…] about The Red Scare: A Personal History

John Hersey and the Hiroshima Cover-up

June 7, 2021 by Lawrence Wittner Leave a Comment

In Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World (Simon & Schuster, 2020), a crisply-written, well-researched book, Lesley Blume, a journalist and biographer, tells the fascinating story of the background to John Hersey’s path-breaking article “Hiroshima” and of its extraordinary impact upon the world. [Read more…] about John Hersey and the Hiroshima Cover-up

Trailblazing Women: Peace Activist Tracy Mygatt

March 25, 2021 by Chuck Howlett Leave a Comment

Born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 12th, 1885, Tracy Mygatt was inspired by her New England ancestors’ religious convictions and translated those spiritual roots into radical social change, one that was highlighted by her own political determination.

After her graduation from Bryn Mawr College in 1908, she devoted her life to a number of reform causes, which included child labor and unemployment, world peace through her association with peace organizations and calls for world government, and an economic system based on democratic-socialist principles. [Read more…] about Trailblazing Women: Peace Activist Tracy Mygatt

Ugly History of North Country Nationalism Offers Lessons For Today

March 14, 2017 by Lawrence P. Gooley 4 Comments

Goodness has long been an admirable part of our identity as Americans. It is evident at the national level in our response when natural disasters strike here or abroad. Closer to home, we see it manifested daily in our own Adirondacks and foothills, where people donate, volunteer, and reach out to help others. Our foundation as small-town folk is one of welcoming, caring, sharing.

Along with that comes the knowledge that we’re also lucky to be Americans, lucky to not have been born in some other country where things are much different. Many of the lessons we learned in school were derived from the struggles of others in less fortunate circumstances.

We were taught to appreciate certain rights and freedoms, to speak out against perceived wrongs, to defend the less capable, and to question the directives of those in leadership positions. In some countries, those rights are viewed as privileges for the chosen few, or are not available at all. [Read more…] about Ugly History of North Country Nationalism Offers Lessons For Today

New York’s Long History of Peace Activism

June 24, 2015 by Lawrence Wittner 2 Comments

As a scholarly specialist on the American peace movement, I am sometimes telephoned for background information by journalists writing articles about current demonstrations against war or against nuclear weapons. Almost invariably, they have no idea that the American peace movement has a rich history. Or, if they realize that it does have such a history, they have no idea that that history goes back further than the Vietnam War. This is a very big and unfortunate gap in their knowledge. [Read more…] about New York’s Long History of Peace Activism

Mayor John Lindsay and the Reinvention New York

April 29, 2010 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

“America’s Mayor: John V. Lindsay and the Reinvention New York,” a 2010 exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York and companion book, examined the controversial career and dramatic times of New York’s 103rd mayor.

The exhibition presented Mayor John Lindsay’s efforts to govern a city that was undergoing dramatic changes and that was at the center of the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s; it highlighted Mayor Lindsay’s ambitious initiatives to redefine New York’s government, economy, culture, and public life. [Read more…] about Mayor John Lindsay and the Reinvention New York

Peace Studies

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