What Do You Do When a Child is Burning?: A review of the film The Camden 28

What a story! The term "must see" has become a cliché, but for anyone seriously interested in peace and justice, it applies to the documentary The Camden 28. This film documents the activities of a group of Christian anti-war activists in a Vietnam era action carried out in 1971.

The film portrays an inspiring example of peace activism. The film begins with scenes of the Vietnam war. The question is asked: "What do you do when a child is burning - write a letter?" This moral dilemma led 28 anti-war activists, including Catholic and Protestant clergy, to enter the Camden, NJ Draft Board office early in the morning of August 21, 1971 to destroy young men's draft cards and thereby prevent them from being drafted.

While inside the draft board, they were all arrested. All except one, that is. One of the members of their group had changed their mind and warned the FBI of the impending action.

The feelings of the group toward the man who informed on them are laid bare as the activists' ability to forgive is put to the test. At least one of the defendants reached out to him even before the informer's nine-year-old son was mortally injured in a tree-climbing accident. The funeral was presided over by one of the Camden 28, and the ceremony was attended by both defendants and the arresting FBI agents.

Apparent in this film is the duplicity of US governmental officials, from the lies about the Vietnam war to assurances given by FBI agents to the informant that his friends would never be sent to prison if he informed on them. The informant realized that he had been deceived, and his truthful testimony during the trial provided crucial support for the defendants' case.

Giving testimony at the trial, historian Howard Zinn drew on the Pentagon Papers to illustrate the serial lies of successive US presidents. During Zinn's testimony, the mother of one of the Camden 28 defendants, who had lost another son in Vietnam, began quietly sobbing as she recognized the illegitimacy and injustice of the war.

Called to the stand herself, she testified that she could now understand her protesting son's actions, since she could no longer rationalize her other son's death as a noble sacrifice.

Zinn also urged the jury to distinguish between law and justice, and pointed out that the two are often not congruent.

The jury listened. In a stunning denouement, they voted unanimously to acquit the Camden 28, the first time defendants in a draft board raid case were so vindicated.

The verdict signified that the American public had turned strongly against the US war in Vietnam, but also that it would not give the "powers that be" carte blanche to prosecute those who violated the law on the basis of their conscience.

One of the clergymembers who participated in the action, Rev. Michael Doyle, spoke in the film about his closing statement to the jury, saying how exhilarating it was for him to say the things that he did.

Unfortunately, this statement and those of the other defendants are not presented. If there is a deficiency in the film, it is that we do not hear these statements, and never hear in their own words the defendants' motivations. [Peacework published an accompanying excerpt from Father Doyle's Opening statement.]

This documentary asks the question "How far would you go to stop a war?"

We might all ask the same question today.