BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF THE PERSHING PLOWSHARES

 

Per Herngren, 22, from Sweden, has been working with the Syracuse (N.Y.) Peace Council since August 1983. A member of a Congregational church in Sweden and a full-time peaceworker, he has worked in both Sweden and the U.S. organizing nonviolent actions against the arms race.

 

Todd S. Kaplan, 26, currently lives in Washington, D.C. and staffs a shelter for homeless families. He has spent nine years working at various peace, reconciliation, and service communities in Washington, D.C., Michigan, and Israel. He descri bes himself as a fai thful Jew struggling to follow God's call to bring Shalom (Peace) and Tzedekah (Justice) to this world.

 

Tim Lietzke, 32, from Richmond, Virginia, is a peace activist and a member of the Community of the Servant. He is married to Elaine Shurie. He works with the poor an1 the de-institutionalized, gardens, and writes.

Tim and Elaine publish "Resistance in Hope," a newsletter for people in the Virginia area.

 

Paul Magno, Jr., 27, is a member of a Catholic worker community in Washington, D.C. A 1978 graduate of Georgetown University, he is a longtime activist in the nation's capital on behalf of social justice for the poor.

 

Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, 57, is a Religious of the Sacred Heart, belonging to the Aletheia Community in New York City. She has taught adolescents and children for over 30 years, most recently as a learning disabilities teacher in East Harlem. Since 1978 she has been increasingly challenged by the connections between the nuclear arms race, the children she teaches, and the violence anD poverty of the city, to the service of reSistance and nonviolence, and thus to acts of Divine Obedience.

 

Patrick O'Neill, 28, is a peace activist from Greenville, N.C. A student at North Carolina Central University, he is also a member of the Greenvill Peace Committee and sits on the steering committee of the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh's Peace and Justice Committee. He is a free-lance writer and has written for several North Carolina newspapers.

 

James Perkins, 45, taught high school social studies from 1061-1968 and founded and directed the Manhattan County School Farm, offering farm family environment, skills, and values to inner-city children. He spent six months practicing prayer and meditation at Doshinji Monastery,

Mt. Tremper, N.Y. before becoming part of a war resistance community

in Maryland. He has five children.

Christin Marie Schmidt, 24, is a resident of the state of Rhode Island. A former history student at the University of Rhode Island, she is a full-time activist for peace and justice. She is currently living in a resistance community in Maryland

 

All Biographical information on this site is dated to the time of the plowshares action itself and is here presented for contextual purposes only. For information on the current status of plowshares activists, please contact the Webmaster at Eleitner-sieber@juno.com.