Ann Suellentrop sings Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” ending with Ann’s no-nuke verse, with a bow to Marvin Gaye (for “love can conquer hate"): “How many times will we escalate? / When will we learn that only love can conquer hate? / How many times must we say no to nukes / Before we take them all down? / How many years must we risk all life on Earth / Before we are all truly free? / The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind / The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”—Zoom screenshots by Kriss Avery, unless otherwise noted.
PeaceWorks KC Ecology, Nuclear weapons

Song, sorrow, hope at heart of PeaceWorks’ Annual Meeting

“Blowin’ in the Wind” framed our sorrow about the war on Ukraine, with reflections and hope shared at the PeaceWorks Annual Meeting via Zoom.

Courtroom, from left: Prosecutor Jesse Sendejas questions Lt. Michael Clark, standing at the podium; Judge Ardie A. Bland presides; and defendants listen (from left)—Brother Louis Rodemann, Jim Hannah, Tom Mountenay, Brian Terrell.—Sketch by Pat Marrin
PeaceWorks KC Nuclear weapons

Judge tells nuke resisters, ‘Continue to fight for what you believe is right’

The four defendants at the Feb. 18 trial were voluntarily arrested for trespassing May 31, 2021, at the National Security Campus, operated by Honeywell for the National Nuclear Security Administration. As one of the defendants stated the day of the trial, “Why are we on trial and not those who make these weapons?”

Christian Brother Louis Rodemann is handcuffed on May 31, 2021, Memorial Day, arrested for his 4th line-crossing at the KC MO nuke-parts plant.—Photo by Tom Fox
PeaceWorks KC Nonviolence

‘I cannot NOT resist the immorality’ of producing weapons of war

Brother Louis, at his trial Feb. 18, called for following the vow of nonviolence, including this passage, “by working nonviolently to abolish war, the weapons of war, and the causes of war from my own heart and from the face of the Earth.”

Henry Stoever addresses more than 50 persons on Memorial Day, 2021, shortly before he and four other persons crossed a property line at the nuclear weapons parts plant, the National Security Campus, to protest nukes.--Photo by Tom Fox
PeaceWorks KC Nonviolence

Nonviolence in a violent world

“Today it is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it is either nonviolence or non-existence,” said Martin Luther King, Jr., in a sermon about Mohandas K. Gandhi, delivered in 1959. Can we handle this challenge? WE MUST.

Speaking to PeaceWorks March 1, 2020, Bette Tate-Beaver says of her work to bring groups to visit educators and students in other countries, “If we come to care about people who are like us in different spaces, it’s kind of hard to hate.”—Photos by Jim Hannah
PeaceWorks KC Racism

Bette Tate-Beaver died Aug. 29

Bette Tate-Beaver, an international leader in social work and education, died of cancer Aug. 29. Through her lifetime, she fostered the beloved community envisioned by Martin Luther King Jr.