By René Wadlow

Lawrence S. Wittner, Working for Peace and Justice

Knoxville, TN/University of Tennessee Press, 2012, 268pp.

Laurence Wittner has written a very moving account of his efforts as an activist for peace and social justice. At this present time, when such efforts are very necessary, the memoir is a guideline for concerted efforts, both the joys and the difficulties.

Wittner was largely based at the State University of New York at Albany, which is the administrative capital of New York, home of the governor, although New York City has a much larger population and is a center of economic, cultural, and political power.

In the fall of 2005, his long-time activity in the peace movement combined with his books on anti-nuclear weapons such as Struggle Against the Bomb and Toward Nuclear Abolition, both published by Stanford University Press) led to his election to the national board of Peace Action, the largest, broadly based United States (U.S.) peace organization with some 100,000 members. Thus, he writes on activities at the local level, mostly Albany, as well as at the national level with the factionalism and sectarianism that have often characterized Left movements such as democratic socialism in which Wittner was active.

Yet, as he writes, “Over the course of history, there are heartening indications that people of goodwill and determination have made headway in pulling humanity out of the nightmare of ignorance, superstition, slavery, tyranny, exploitation and militarism that has characterized the past. In my own lifetime I have seen courageous people topple dictatorships, shatter systems of racial oppression, roll back corporate domination, bring an end to unjust wars and avert a nuclear holocaust. And I am confident that efforts to extend human progress will continue.”

Progress requires organizing, persistence, and a sense of community with those with whom one is working. For Wittner, music was an important activist tool; he played the guitar and often performed songs at political meetings.

There is much to be done to create a harmonious world society, and Working for Peace and Justice sets out important paths of action.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.