Civil Disobedience
“I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” ―Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1969, I was twelve and when my father said he was going to drive to Washington to protest the Vietnam War, I asked if I could go with him. The year before had been marked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, the Chicago Democratic Convention which was televised live, and violent antiwar demonstrations on college campuses. My oldest sister was attending Radcliffe, and I was terrified that she was going to be killed.
photo by Unseen Histories
Going to Washington was life altering. I witnessed every kind of person, from every race, age, and background united to tell Nixon that we were done. The casualties of that war – 40,000 dead by 1969, the hopelessness of continuing while a corrupt administration attempted to justify this insane loss of life, the returning veterans who were so damaged by witnessing atrocities many of them were unable to reenter civilian life, brought half a million Americans to Washington DC to chant, “One-two-three-four, we don’t want this fucking war.” Since I was twelve, I checked with my father, but he said swearing was fine.
Watching Chicagoans defy ICE, protect their neighbors, school children and undocumented workers reminds me that we must continue to defy authority, to reject fear and authoritarianism, to tell this corrupt and evil administration that we are done. I had a severely broken leg when the Women’s March took place and I watched from our condo, stoned on pain meds, depressed and enraged by my own helplessness.
I am so moved by these Chicago people, the grandmothers, the high school students, the wealthy and the dispossessed who have decided that they will not allow masked men to bully and terrify them, who are pushing back with nonviolent resistance once shown vividly by King and Gandhi. In 2016 my mother said, “This is far worse than you know. He is a fascist dictator.” I heard her but wanted to believe that what she had witnessed during the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, the spread of fascism across Europe and yes, America, could not possibly happen here. I was wrong.
This weekend I will march here in Northern Michigan. Unlike Chicago, we do not often see ICE rounding up our citizens, but the entire country is in mortal danger. At twelve I was taught you stand up, and you scream the truth. At 68 I will do it again.
– Molly Moynahan