Step By Step, Rust in Peace: The Quiet Peacemakers of Wilmington College, 1940 - 1976

In 1660, a small group of Friends declared to the King of England, "We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever; and this is our testimony to the whole world." At Wilmington College in Ohio, founded by another small group of Friends, this Quaker peace testimony took life and breath in the form of individuals who refused to sanction violence in the 20th century. This is the story of those individuals and their response to wars from the first peacetime American draft in 1940 to the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice in 1976. One student, writing in the college newspaper in 1969 during the turbulent Vietnam era, recognized something extraordinary in the teaching and example he found when he said, "We are fortunate to have a campus where adult leadership is as principled as it is here. There are staff members whose records or opposition to war started long before the Vietnam War made such opposition respectable. The rest of the country unfortunately cannot claim such ethical leadership." The lives of the quiet peacemakers of Wilmington College represent a powerful example of resistance to war, and their work challenges the notion that violence can ever be justifed.