Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children... The Catonsville Nine were nine Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War. On May 17, 1968 they went to the draft board in Catonsville, in the U.S. state of Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to the parking lot in wire baskets, dumped them out, poured home-made napalm over them, and set them on fire. The lead defense attorney was counterculture legal icon William Kunstler. They were found guilty of destruction of U.S. property, destruction of Selective Service files, and interference with the Selective Service Act of 1967. They were also sentenced to a total of 18 years jail time and a fine of $22,000. Several of the nine—Mary Moylan, Phil Berrigan, Dan Berrigan and George Mische—went underground when it came time to show up for prison—in other words, the FBI had to try to find them. Father Dan Berrigan caused considerable embarrassment to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover by popping up and giving sermons and then fading back into the underground. Large demonstrations occurred outside the Federal Courthouse on Calvert St. during the trial. The trial came soon after the events of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago where considerable violence took place. The Nines trial, with religious people involved, made the overall peace movement a bit harder to dismiss since protesters in Chicago consisted of younger, student and SDS, Weather Underground, and youths with long hair. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catonsville_Nine
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 20:59:55 +0000
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