Conference on Violence Held

Violence in our society became real for over 400 people at a conference on that subject on March 18. Draft-age students came with their girl friends and young mothers listened as best they could while their children pulled at their skirts.

The conference at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church was opened by Olga Penn, Chairman of Detroit Women for Peace. She introduced Dr. Paul Lowinger who talked about the effect of violence on young people:

“The effect of this war in conditioning to violence will show in the next generation as surviving men return, marry and have children.”

During the luncheon break, an older man with a War Resister’s pin read a copy of the FIFTH ESTATE. He didn’t stop reading until Detroit Attorney Claudia Shopshire began to speak on Civil Rights and violence:

“There has to be a social revolution in our system. The Negro has seen the law condone violence against him for too long.”

Some of the kids fell asleep and missed Congressman John Conyers; but everyone participated in the four workshops and heard discussion on war toys, violence on TV and the effects of napalm on their Vietnamese counterparts.

Many mothers, including two carloads of women from the Voice of Women and the Congress of Canadian Women, were warmly welcomed and stayed over for the evening talk by William Pepper, author of the Ramparts article on The Children of Vietnam.

Dagmar Wilson, founder of Women Strike for Peace, highlighted the Conference with her remarks on Violence in our Society:

“Asking our youth to postpone their lives, their dreams, is a form of violence, when they are asked to substitute ‘patriotism’ for conscience. The hypocrisy under which we live today is the worst form of violence...”

As the conference came to a close and the audience began to leave, the man with the War Resister’s pin folded up his FIFTH ESTATE, left the church, and went back to America.

Related

See Fifth Estate’s Vietnam Resource Page.