Crimes of Dissent: Civil Disobedience, Criminal Justice, and the Politics of Conscience

Appendix: Activist Profiles

207 Appendix Activist Profiles Ellen Barfield was born in Macon, Georgia, in 1956 and grew up in Lubbock and Amarillo, Texas. She served in the U.S. Army from 1977 to 1981, stationed in Kitzingen, Germany; Fort Hood, Texas; PyongTaek , South Korea; and Fort Riley, Kansas. She earned a degree in animal science from West Texas State University and briefly attended veterinary school at Texas A&M University. Barfield left the army with an unfocused desire to do something about social ills. A peace camp at the Pantex nuclear weapons plant near Amarillo gave her the opportunity to learn about activism, and she has now been a full-time peace and justice activist for twenty years. Barfield serves on the national boards of Veterans for Peace, the War Resisters League, and the Legislative Working Group of School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), and she cochairs the national Disarmament Committee of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She heads the local chapter of Veterans for Peace in her hometown of Baltimore , Maryland, and works with several other Baltimore peace and justice organizations, as well as with her church, First Unitarian Church of Baltimore. Sanderson Beck was born March 5, 1947, in Los Angeles. He earned a B.A. in dramatic art from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. in religious studies from UC Santa Barbara, Ph.D. candidacy in the philosophy of education from UCLA, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from World University. Today a prolific writer, he was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. In 1982, Beck formulated “World Peace Movement Principles, Purposes, and Methods,” and in 1987 he traveled to forty-seven states and met with six hundred peace groups to promote peace and disarmament. He has been arrested more than fifty times for nonviolently protesting nuclear weapons and military 208 Appendix intervention. After challenging U.S. war crimes in court, he was imprisoned for six months in 1989 and for four months in 2003. Beck has taught philosophy and more than forty different college courses. He was a candidate for president of the United States in December 2002, and in May 2003 he endorsed Dennis Kucinich. He published the Nonviolent Action Handbook and Guides to Peace and Justice in 2003. To date he has written and published more than twenty books, including nine volumes in the ethics of civilization, through the nonprofit publisher World Peace Communications. Flip Benham was born in 1948 in Syracuse, New York. He holds two bachelor ’s degrees from Florida State University (in political science and international relations) and a master of divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary. Appearing on numerous local and national television and radio programs, Rev. Benham is “a bold witness for the Lord Jesus Christ in the public arena.” He has been interviewed by the Washington Post, Washington Times, New York Times, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report , World Magazine, and virtually every major newspaper in the country . Benham leads by example, having spent time in jail for the cause of Christ in Wichita, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, Lynchburg, and Washington, D.C. Benham always preaches Jesus Christ as the answer to the multitude of sins presently savaging our nation. Married to his wife, Faye, for thirty-five years, Benham is the father of five wonderful children. The Benhams are also the proud grandparents of eight beautiful grandchildren. Steve Clemens was born in 1950 and raised in southeastern Pennsylvania. After registering as a conscientious objector in 1968, he began his political activism against the Vietnam War in 1969. He burned his draft card in 1971. During a year of weekly Bible study and reflection with Phil Berrigan and Liz Macalister, he embraced nonviolent direct action. From 1975 to 1990, Clemens was resident partner at Koinonia Partners, an intentional Christian community in Georgia. Having been a member of the Pantex Six (1981), the White Train Five (1985), the SOAW Thirty-Seven (2005), and several dozen other nonviolent actions for peace and justice, Clemens remains active on a weekly basis with AlliantACTION. He was a member of the Iraq Peace Team in Baghdad in December 2002 and spoke at more than sixty events before the war began. He has been married thirty years to Christine Haas Clemens, and the couple has two grown sons. He is a Appendix 209 member of the Community of St. Martin, an ecumenical faith community...