Descriptive Summary
Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Biography / Administrative History
Scope and Content of Collection
Arrangement
Indexing Terms
Restrictions
Descriptive Summary
Title: Pledge of Resistance collection
Dates: 1982-1993
Bulk Dates: 1985-1989
Collection number: GTU 96-7-02
Collector:
Butigan, Kenneth Michael
Collection Size:
17 boxes
15 feet
Repository: The Graduate Theological Union. Library.
Abstract: The Pledge of Resistance began in 1984 in response to the threat of U.S. invasion into Nicaragua. The national structure grew
as people signed the pledge resisting the U.S. government's policies toward Central America. Signals for actions were sent
out from the national center to the local groups whose members committed civil disobedience and protested policies seen as
interventionist and repressive. Groups which worked closely with the Pledge included the Inter-Religious Task Force for Central
America, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, the American Friends Service Committee, and the San Francisco
Bay Area's Emergency Response Network, and Bay Area Pledge of Resistance. National Directors were Stephen Slade, Ken Butigan,
and Judy Rohrer. Jim Wallis was instrumental in the foundation and early years of the Pledge. Brian Willson was an activist
in civil disobedienceThe vast majority of the records are from the Pledge National Resource Center, but also included to a
lesser extent records from the Emergency Response Network, also called the Bay Area Pledge of Resistance, located in San Francisco.
Physical location: 4/H/2-6
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Access
Collection is open for research.
Restrictions: Box 16, containing Personal Reference Sheets, n.d., ca. 4/1987. Closed to public use for 25 years until 2012.
Box 17, containing Personal Reference Sheets (continued). Closed to public use
for 25 years until 2012. Gift Checks received, 1991. Closed for 25 years, until
2016.
Publication Rights
Copyright has not been assigned to The Graduate Theological Union. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Graduate Theological Union
as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must
also be obtained by the reader.
Preferred Citation
Pledge of Resistance collection, GTU 96-7-02. Graduate Theological Union Archives, Berkeley, CA.
Biography / Administrative History
"The plan began to emerge during a retreat. On November 2-4, 1983, representatives of the Christian peace movement met at
the Kirkridge retreat center in Pennsylvania for Bible study, prayer, and political discernment...bringing together those
from major denominations and churches, religious orders, national organizations, community campaigns, and local action groups.
We met in the aftermath of the Grenada invasion. Some of us were in frequent contact with Nicaraguan churchpeople who were
expressing great fear that their country would also be added. ...Witness for Peace, a grassroots effort,...was to be publicly
launched in December and was already attracting a great deal of support and enthusiasm. We committed ourselves to that bold
initiative and together drew up a statement pledging ourselves to a plan of action in the event of a United States invasion
of Nicaragua." ("A Pledge of Resistance", Jim Wallis, in Sojourners August 1984. Box 14, file folder 28.)
The statement had appeared in the December 1983 issue of Sojourners. "We will resist with our minds, hearts, and bodies any
intervention by the United States, directly or indirectly, in Nicaragua. We will call upon our churches, organizations, networks,
communities, and friends to join us in such resistance, and we will begin to prepare others for it. Our faith compels us
to respond: we are committed to an active nonviolence that confronts the forces of war and the structures of injustice.
If such an intervention takes place we will respond. ...We pledge ourselves to work for peace and justice in Central America.
...May peace come to our minds, our hearts, our world." ("A Promise of Resistance", Box 4, file folder 8a.) The original
statement came from a faith perspective, but was never exclusive to church-related persons or organizations. The Pledge encompassed
a broad range of faith, secular, community, and political persons and groups who shared the common goal of a commitment to
peace.
In the national movement, the plan at first relied on Witness for Peace and the Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America
to transmit information and signals for action. As a growing number of people joined the national contingency plan by signing
the Pledge of Resistance, and more and more local and regional groups planned responses to military escalations, a national
working group developed an organizational structure. By the end of 1984 and into 1985, that structure included a National
Resource Center, an executive committee, board of directors, signal group (responsible for initiating calls to action), a
national coordinator, and regional coordinators. The Pledge expanded during the Reagan-Bush years to include actions against
not only intervention in Nicaragua, but U.S. intervention throughout Central America including U.S. funding of the Nicaragua
Contras fighting the Sandinista government (Contra Aid), the embargo against Nicaraguan goods, military exercises in Honduras,
the Iran-Contra scandal (Contra-gate), and U.S. support for the repressive Salvadoran government (bombing and death squads).
In the early 1990s, actions focused on the Gulf War and intervention in Haiti.
The National Resource Center was begun in 1985. It was headquartered at different times in Washington D.C. and in San Francisco,
CA. Stephen Slade served as the National Coordinator (1985-87). The Center convened the executive committee and national
board, collected resources and information, disseminated the information in monthly mailings to regional groups, sponsored
an annual national conference, produced a national newsletter, and did fundraising. The Center also received and filed information
and materials (i.e. newsletters, flyers, newspaper articles reporting actions, etc.) from regional groups and local affinity
groups throughout the U.S. The Center coordinated calls to action, variously called signals or alerts, and kept statistics
through response forms on numbers of actions held, numbers of participants who were arrested committing civil disobedience,
and other local information. The Center coordinated flyer designs, information, and materials for actions and maintained a
phone hotline which gave updated information on events and issues. Slade wrote in 1985, "We pledge to resist as conscience
leads. ...Conscience moves each of us differently. ...The Pledge has never been static and never will be. It will continue
to change because the conditions that gave it birth have changed and because we change." ("The Pledge One Year Later", Box
1, file folder 5.)
In the 1988-89 Pledge of Resistance National Resource Center Annual Report, then National Coordinator (later called Director)
Ken Butigan (1987-90) reported "Tens of thousands of U.S. citizens - participating in over 300 local affiliates across the
country - have engaged in literally hundreds of rallies, marches, vigils, interfaith services, and demonstrations opposing
the U.S. war waged against the people of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and throughout the region. Many also have engaged in nonviolent
civil disobedience, joining the 9,000 people who have been led by conscience to engage in [it] over the last four years in
Pledge-sponsored actions." (Box 1, file folder 3.)
Actions, demonstrations, and protests could be national or local. Over the years, Pledge sponsored actions at federal buildings
in cities throughout the U.S., at the U.S. Capitol building, the Pentagon, and CIA headquarters, at military bases throughout
the U.S., and at congress-people's offices. Proposals for actions could be made from any part of the overall structure from
the national to the local. Local affinity groups, operating by consensus, could choose whether or not to participate, or
could pursue their own individual action. Individuals could choose whether or not they were willing to be arrested during
actions. Throughout its existence, the Pledge of Resistance worked with other major peace activist groups such as Mobilization
for Survival and the American Friends Service Committee, and with Central American focused groups such as CISPES, the Committee
in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.
Judy Rohrer served as National Director, 1991-93. Following the Gulf War and the election of Bill Clinton as President, the
"anti-intervention movement" found itself in a dialog process exploring how to re-envision and re-structure in the new reality.
The questions were "What directions do you see emerging? What are the crucial issues and how do we organize around them?
What role does direct action play in the next period? What is your vision for a national anti-intervention organization/network?"
(Dialogue Process Basic Agenda. Box 1, file folder 38.) The National Pledge Board decided to close the national office,
and in essence the Pledge of Resistance, effective March 15, 1993. Rohrer sent out a closing notice stating, "Movements have
their cycles. At some point in the future anti-intervention activists will be ready to get together to take the next step,
and whatever it is we know it will be grounded in the history and experience of the Pledge. ...The heart of the Pledge has
always been the work of local groups and in that way we know it will continue. ...We are proud of what has been accomplished.
Let's carry what we have learned into this new period and continue the resistance! For Justice." (Box 1, file folder 30.)
Scope and Content of Collection
The Collection contains five Series: 1) Administration; 2) Fundraising and Financial Records; 3) Projects, Events, and
Actions; 4) Regional and Affinity Groups; and 5) Resources.. The Collection was transferred as a whole from a basement
in San Francisco where it had been stored. The materials did not have an internal order. The arrangement here has been imposed.
Arrangement
The Collection contains five Series: 1) Administration; 2) Fundraising and Financial Records; 3) Projects, Events, and
Actions; 4) Regional and Affinity Groups; and 5) Resources.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Subjects
Emergency Response Network (San Francisco Bay Area, Calif.)
Bay Area Pledge of Resistance (San Francisco Bay Area, Calif.)
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (U.S.)
American Friends Service Committee.
Inter-Religious Task Force for Central America.
Protest movements--United States--History--20th Century--Sources.
Civil disobedience--United States--History--20th Century - --Sources.
Peace movements--United States--History--20th Century--Sources.
United States--Relations--Central America.
Central America--Relations--United States.
Central America--Politics and government--1979-
Central America--History--20th Century--Sources.
Index Terms Related to this Collection
Butigan, Ken.
Slade, Stephen.
Wallis, Jim.
Rohrer, Judy.
Willson, Brian.
Restrictions
Box 16, containing Personal Reference Sheets, n.d., ca. 4/1987. Closed to public use for 25 years until 2012.
Box 17, containing Personal Reference Sheets (continued). Closed to public use
for 25 years until 2012. Gift Checks received, 1991. Closed for 25 years, until
2016.