Download The Catonsville Nine: A Story of Faith and Resistance in the Vietnam Era AudioBook Free
On May 17th, 1968, a group of Catholic antiwar activists burst into a draft panel in suburban Baltimore, stole hundreds of Selective Service documents (which they called "death certificates"), and burnt the documents in a fireplace fueled by homemade napalm. The daring actions of the ''Catonsville Nine'' quickly became international media and captured headlines throughout the summer and semester of 1968 when the activists, defended by radical attorney William Kunstler, were attempted in federal court docket. In The Catonsville Nine, Shawn Francis Peters, a Catonsville native, offers the first comprehensive consideration of this key event in the history of 1960's protest. While thousands of followers thronged the pavements beyond your courthouse, the Catonsville Nine - whose ranks included activist priests Philip and Daniel Berrigan - delivered passionate indictments of the warfare in Vietnam and the brutality of American foreign policy. The proceedings come to a stirring climax, as the nine activists led the complete courtroom (the judge and national prosecutors included) in the Lord's Prayer. Peters provides listeners vivid, blow-by-blow accounts of the draft raid, the trial, and the ensuing manhunt for the Berrigans, George Mische, and Mary Moylan, who went underground somewhat than are accountable to jail. He also examines the impact of Daniel Berrigan's play, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, and the larger influence of this remarkable action of civil disobedience. A lot more than 40 years once they stormed the draft panel, the Catonsville Nine remain invoked by both secular and spiritual competitors of militarism. Based on an abundance of resources, including archival documents, the activists' previously unreleased FBI documents, and a variety of eyewitness accounts, The Catonsville Nine tells a tale as relevant and instructive today as it was in 1968.
