From the Editor's Desk

-- Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

As I was putting this issue together, I received the sad news of Ralph DiGia's death. Ralph was a World War II conscientious objector. While in jail for refusing to kill, he participated in a desegregation campaign, in the 1940s -- while in federal prison -- and won. Not a spokesperson, not a theoretician, but ever the nuts and bolts activist, staffing the War Resisters League's national office for 60 years.

Ralph's long term commitment to nonviolent action, resisting war, denouncing bombs, and defying racism, provides us with an admirable alternative to a belief in "instantaneous solutions." Yet by his example, he modeled the "heady belief" that we can make a difference over the long term.

I first met Ralph at a War Resisters League national conference in Easton, PA in 1983. I was new to the peace movement, clueless about movement history, culture, and ideologies. Ralph wasn't dispensing sweeping analyses of the movement, like David Dellinger, or sagely pontificating on the ethics of the world, like Igal Roodenko, two of his WWII-era conscientious objector colleagues. Instead, Ralph asked, "How's it going?" He seemed to enjoy listening to everyone.

I remember Ralph's friend and colleague, Karl Bissinger, picking me up at the train station, baffling me with the question, "So, which side are you going to play with during the softball game, the anarchists or the socialists?" I decided I'd switch back and forth in the middle of the game in the name of cooperation.

Ralph was amused, but also outraged. "That's not baseball," he laughed. We've laughed together for a quarter of a century at meetings, conferences, demonstrations, and softball games.

For at least the last 25 years, even when many around him were feuding, all sides confided in Ralph. The one time that I know of when he was in the center of a major dispute, he found a way to heal the rift. He practiced that gift.

When Ralph heard about an injustice or atrocity, he'd mutter, "That's terrible. That's just terrible." In response, he'd focus on the practical: how to get the fund appeal out, how to fulfill literature orders, how to promote the next peace calendar. He was personally responsible for mailing more literature than anyone I know.

It's Ralph's idealistic pragmatism that makes this issue an appropriate tribute to his legacy. In it, the authors focus not so much on ideas for how to fix the world, but on skills and approaches we can use, adapt, and develop to change it.

Reading this issue, we can learn how to better: connect militarism to other forms of oppression, counter military recruiters, expose the costs of war, feed the hungry, celebrate appropriate technology, revitalize local groups, ally for justice, build student movements, respond to harassment at protests, and find our voices. In the pair of articles on Students for a Democratic Society, there are both suggestions for future directions, and warnings about paths to avoid.

I hope, with help from tools like these, someone in the future, inspired by Audre Lorde and Ralph DiGia, will be able to say, "The 'teens' were characterized by the heady implementation of transformative solutions."

From the Editor's Desk
Sam Diener, Co-Editor

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