"If I can't love Hitler, I can't love at all."
"Peace Agitator" is the story of A.J. Muste and his lifelong radical social experiments. Muste, although spending some time as a revolutionary Trotskyite, was a pacifist and a major figure in American peace movements. Whether it was involvement and leadership in peace marches, demonstrations against nuclear testing, labor strikes, or civil rights activities, Muste lead a life in action guided by the principles of nonviolence and his love of humanity. A theme that appears in this biography, which includes accounts from members of various movements and groups involved in forms of social acton, is that Muste was a sort of Rennaissance man of the peace movement. Muste had a very firm moral foundation based in the Christian faith (he began as a Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church minister and eventually became a Quaker and chair of the Fellowship of Reconcilliation) which allowed him to move forward with an undaunting and momentous conviction in his own work, but also allowed him to tie together the myriad movements that were happening all around him and to conciliate the various points of view that were being espoused. In a way, as the appelation "American Gandhi" indicates, Muste was an activist's activist who had a clear vision that gave root to disparate individual visions of the time.
Links:
A.J. Muste Memorial Institute
Citation Information:
Hentoff, N. (1963). Peace agitator: The story of A.J. Muste. New York: Macmillan
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