A board member and former president and Vice President of the peace history society. Im delighted to moderate this session. World war i spawned the modern American Peace movement. This modern movement advocated both peace and social justice and was characterized by liberal and radical Citizen Peace activists, womens peace organizations and a progressive reformist impulse. Significantly, this movement contained a powerful secular impulse in the post1914 Peace Movement marked an important milestone in what John Chambers and charles moscose termed the shift from safer to secular resistance and towards a new conscientious objection. Historically peace activism was based on religious motives, although in the decade or so before 1914 secular middle class peace societies emerged, including the cornegy endowment for International Peace and the world peace foundation. World war i accelerated this trend toward secularization. During the war socialists, anarchists and other political radicals bas
Im delighted to moderate this session. World war i spawned the modern American Peace movement. This modern movement advocated both peace and social justice and was characterized by liberal and radical Citizen Peace activists, womens peace organizations and a progressive reformist impulse. Significantly, this movement contained a powerful secular impulse in the post1914 Peace Movement marked an important milestone in what John Chambers and charles moscose termed the shift from safer to secular red to secularac resistance and towards a new Conscientious Objection. Historically peace activism was based on religious motives, although in the decade or so before 1914 secular middle class peace societies emerged, including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the world peace foundation. World war i accelerated this trend toward secularization. During the war, socialists, anarchists, and other political radicals based their dissent on secular principles, political, philosophical
Point center for oral history. Its 1 10. Were here at the west point center for oral history studio on february 23rd, 2015, with mr. Henry james thomas. Hello, mr. Thomas. Hi. How are you doing . Pretty good. Welcome. Thank you. Were happy to have the chance to talk to you today. Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood . Im interested because it seems like your independent, fighting spirit seemed to emerge early, earlier than most. Yes. I spent part of my childhood in georgia, in the middle part of georgia. I was born in jacksonville, florida, and i think from age probably 3 to 8 was spent in georgia, wadly, georgia, an area considered middle georgia. Not that far from augusta, georgia. And thats where i came of age as a teenager. I came by my activism very early. I always had sort of an innate sense of what was right and what was wrong, and i dont know exactly where i got that from. And the idea of segregation and things that white people could do and black people could not
Spirit seemed to emerge early, earlier than most. Yes. I spent part of my childhood in georgia, in the middle part of georgia. I was born in jacksonville, florida, and i think from age probably 3 to 8 was spent in georgia, wadly, georgia, an area considered middle georgia. Not that far from augusta, georgia. And thats where i came of age as a teenager. I came by my activism very early. I always had sort of an innate sense of what was right and what was wrong, and i dont know exactly where i got that from. And the idea of segregation and things that white people could do and black people could not do, i understood very early as maybe as early as 7, 8 years old that there was something wrong with that. Obviously i wasnt capable of any kind of deep philosophical thinking. Its just that why cant we go there and white folks can, and why are we poorer than white people. Those were the things that as a child concerned me. I did have one incident in wattly, georgia, wherein i guess i violated
Welcome. Thank you. Were happy to have the chance to talk to you today. Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood . Im interested because it seems like your independent, fighting spirit seemed to emerge early, earlier than most. Yes. I spent part of my childhood in georgia, in the middle part of georgia. I was born in jacksonville, florida, and i think from age probably 3 to 8 was spent in georgia, wadly, georgia, an area considered middle georgia. Not that far from augusta, georgia. And thats where i came of age as a teenager. I came by my activism very early. I always had sort of an innate sense of what was right and what was wrong, and i dont know exactly where i got that from. And the idea of segregation and things that white people could do and black people could not do, i understood very early as maybe as early as 7, 8 years old that there was something wrong with that. Obviously i wasnt capable of any kind of deep philosophical thinking. Its just that why cant we go ther