ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance - Softcover

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Anne Montgomery voluntarily served over three years in prison for her antinuclear activities, and her life story is truly a remarkable journey of faith. The daughter of an admiral whose activities as a warrior in many ways inspired hers as a pacifist, she joined the Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ) at 22. Teaching at the Street Academy of Albany, she experienced the challenges faced by the poor and people of color. In 1975, after training to educate children with learning disabilities, she returned to New York City to work with school dropouts in East Harlem. It was during this time that she also became involved with the Catholic Worker. She became more involved with peacemaking efforts, including the newly formed Kairos peace community, of which she remained a vital core member.In 1980 Montgomery made history when she participated in the first Plowshares action known as the Plowshares Eight. This unprecedented peace witness at the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons marked the beginning of a new series of actions in which nonviolent resisters sought to enact the biblical prophecy of beating swords into plowshares. They would enter weapons facilities and military bases, and - using hammers, blood and other symbols - carry out a direct act of disarmament. There have been over 95 such actions to date. Montgomery went on to do seven other plowshares actions, the last of which - the Disarm Now Plowshares - took place in 2009 when she was 83.Montgomery's commitment to standing with and for the victims led her to many war-torn areas. In January 1991 she was part of the Gulf Peace Team Camp on the Iraq/Saudi border calling upon the US not to bomb Iraq. She later became a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), serving in Iraq, the Balkans, the West Bank, and Hebron.Following the 2010 Disarm Now plowshares trial conviction, for which she served two months in federal prison and was placed on house arrest, Montgomery lived with her community in Redwood City, CA.