Who Is Clare Grady and Why Should We Care that She is in Federal Prison?
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - February 15, 2021 1
Covert Magazine
Plowshares 7 congregate outside courthouse during their trial for breaking
into the Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia. Martha Hennessy, Kathleen
Rumpf (co-defendent in another Plowshares case), Mark Colville, Clare Grady,
Carmen Trotta, Patrick ONeill, Liz McAlister. (July 12th, 2019) [Source:
beyondnuclearinternational.org]
On April 4, 2018a date symbolically chosen because it is the 50th
anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.s assassinationClare Grady and six
other activists broke into the Kings Bay Submarine base in St. Marys,
Georgia, the largest nuclear submarine base in the world.
Clare Grady [Source: wpengine.net]
They carried hammers and baby bottles filled with their own blood. Their
purpose? To symbolically beat swords into plowshares, as prophesied in
Isaiah 2:4, by disarming one of the worlds deadliest swordsthe Trident
nuclear submarine.
It was no walk in the park
First, using a bolt cutter, this unlikely commando team of 60-, 70- and
80-year-old priests, grandmothers and grandfathers squeezed themselves
through a remote gate on the base. Then they trekked, slopped, and splashed
through two miles of notoriously inhospitable Southern Georgia swampland,
swarming with ticks, fire ants, earwigs and mosquitoesnot to mention
poisonous rattlesnakesas well as venomous scorpions only an inch in length
but whose sting can be fatal, and alligators, of which Georgia boasts a
population of more than 200,000.
Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay, Georgia. [Source: staticflickr.com]
Finally, as reported by World Socialist Website, they reached a location
where they prayed, read from Scripture, splashed bottles of their own blood
onto a wall, spray-painted messages against nuclear weapons onto a sidewalk,
hammered on parts of a shrine to nuclear missiles and hung protest banners.
Inside the Kings Bay Nuclear Submarine Base in Georgia. [Source: msn.com]
As agreed in advance, all seven participantsClare Grady, Father Stephen
Kelly, Mark Colville, Martha Hennessy, Elizabeth McAlister, Patrick ONeill,
and Carmen Trottaremained at the site, peacefully awaiting the police, so
they could explain the reason for their actions. They were arrested, tried,
and then convicted on October 24, 2019, in the U.S. District Court of the
Southern District of Georgia for the crime of conspiracy, destruction of
property on a naval installation, depredation of government property, and
trespass.
Clare Grady was sentenced to a one-year prison term in Alderson Federal
Prison in West Virginia, which began on February 10th, 2021.
As for the other six activists: Carmen Trotta was sentenced to 14 months;
Patrick ONeill to 14 months followed by two years of supervised probation.
(He has appealed the sentence.); Steve Kelly to 33-months less time served
and three years of supervised probation; Martha Hennessy to 10 months; and
Elizabeth McAlister to time served, which was the 17 months she had spent in
prison awaiting trial. (She was also sentenced to three years of
probation.). Mark Colville will be sentenced in April.
Plowshares 7 [Source: kingsbayplowshares7.org]
Festival of Hope in Celebration of Clare Grady and the Plowshares 7
Going to prison has not discouraged Clare Grady, nor will it deter her from
continued opposition to the makers of war and mass death who control our
national government. To celebrate Clare Gradys resilience and
determination, and that of her six companions, the antiwar group Code Pink
hosted a Festival of Hope webinar in honor of Clare and the Kings Bay
Plowshares 7 on February 7, 2021, three days before the start of Clares
prison term.
Many who spoke at this virtual convocation are long-time activists who have
spent their lives in the service of world peace and universal community.
They include:
Agnes Williams, a Seneca leader working in western New York;
Leona Morgan, a Diné leader from the Navajo Nation, working in New Mexico
and Arizona to stop uranium production and dumping on their lands;
Clare Daly, Irish Parliamentarian and a co-defendant in an Irish trial of
civil resistance to U.S. warplanes refueling at Shannon Airport;
Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima survivor who has worked tirelessly to end
nuclear weapons and has been instrumental in the enactment of the Treaty for
the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that went into force last week;
Professor Russell Rickford, Cornell University historian of the Black
Freedom Struggle and the Black Radical Tradition and an organizer with the
Democratic Socialists of America;
Emma OGrady, writer, and actor from County Galway, Ireland;
Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann, Detroit theologian, author, nonviolent community
activist and civil resister to water shut-offs, who offered a closing
prayer.
Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima bomb survivor voiced her support for Grady and
the Plowshares 7 in a pre-recorded statement that was played at the
Festival of Hope.
Setsuko Thurlow amidst backdrop of atomic bomb. [Source:
images.search.yahoo.com]
In the statement, Setsuko described in vivid detail her experience in
Hiroshima on the fateful day of August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb was
dropped.
At the time, Setsuko was on an excursion away from her school. Suddenly, she
said, she was blown into the air and felt herself floating before she
woke up to find herself in darkness under a collapsed building.
After hearing a male voice telling her not to give up, a soldier helped
free Setsuko from the building, which was now on fire.
Outside, the air was filled with particles, and people moved on the streets
as if they were ghosts, with their hair standing up to the sky, and their
skin and flesh burned.
Some of the people had their intestines bulging out while others had their
own eyeballs in their hands.
Setsuko escaped to a hill which was packed with dead bodies and people were
begging for water.
Among the thousands of innocent people killed on that day were nine members
of Setsukos family, including her aunt, uncle, sister and four-year-old
nephew, whose small body became unrecognizable.
Scene of devastation after the atomic attack on Hiroshima. [Source:
media1.britannica.com]
Setsuko stated that this is what nuclear war does; it results in
indescribable mass killing and suffering. Today, the weapons are even more
destructive than in 1945, and could kill a million people in a quick
moment.
Standing up for Humanity
Setsukos warning was heeded by other speakers at the webinar who further
emphasized the health hazards of nuclear energy and its contamination of the
environment.
Clare Daly [Source: innovationpolitics.eu]
Clare Daly, a member of the European parliament who was jailed for
protesting against U.S. military planes flying out of Shannon Airport in
Ireland, stated that the stance taken by Clare [Grady] was absolutely moral
and courageous, she is a beacon to activists around the world. Clare joins
people like Julian Assange in going to jail for standing up for humanity.
Gradys daughter, Leah, read a letter from Plowshares 7 activist Martha
Hennessy, currently serving out her ten-month sentence at the Danbury
Correctional Institution in Connecticut, who recalled how she and Clare had
been imprisoned together for protest acts in the early 1980s and that Clare
had taught her how to be a role model to other incarcerated women.
Martha Hennessy [Source: thecoloradocoalition.org]
Patrick ONeill, who is serving a 14-month sentence, sent a message from the
Elkton Correctional Institution in Ohio that Clare will be a light in the
darkness for women in her next stop, a den of oppression and despair.
At the trial, Plowshares 7 attorneys had tried to argue that the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 protected the protest because the seven were
motivated by their faith and that nuclear weapons are illegal, as an
indictment Hennessy taped to the door of the base alleged.
Patrick ONeill [Source: kingsplowshare7.org]
When Hennessy attempted to show the jury photos of bodies at Hiroshima, the
judge objected.
At their sentencing, Plowshares activists invoked the Nuremberg principle,
stating that it was their duty to try to stop another nuclear holocaust, and
that those who say nothing in the face of evil, are contributing to evil by
their collective silence.
Steve Kelley, who is a Jesuit priest said that he considered himself a
prisoner of conscience for Christ, preaching against the sin that
flourishes in weapons of mass destruction.
Grady stated at her sentencing that the weapons she had tried to sabotage
were not private property, they belong to the people of the United States,
they belong to me, to you, to us.
These weapons kill and cause harm in our name, and with our money. This
omnicidal weapon doesnt just kill IF it is launched, it kills every day.
Indigenous people are, and continue to be, some of the first victims of
nuclear weaponsthe mining, refining, testing, and dumping of radioactive
material for nuclear weapons all happens on Native Land. The trillions of
dollars spent on nuclear weapons are resources STOLEN from the planet and
her people.[1]
History
Most members of the Plowshares 7 are affiliated with the Catholic Worker
movement which is committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and
hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken.
Plowshares 7 and their supporters congregate before trial. [Source:
antinuclearinfo.files.wordpress.com]
Art Laffin, co-editor of Swords into PlowsharesNonviolent Direct Action for
Disarmament noted explained that the main symbols used in plowshares
actions are hammers and blood. Hammers are used to literally begin the
process of disarmament that thousands of talks and numerous treaties have
failed to accomplish. The hammer is used to take apart as well as create,
and to point to the urgency for conversion of war and weapons production to
products that enhance life.
Liz McAlister has been an anti-war activist since she and her late husband,
Philip Berrigan, destroyed draft cards during the Vietnam War, and Martha
Hennessy is the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker Movement
founder who is on her way to being canonized as a saint by the Vatican.
Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. [Source:
biography.com]
The Plowshares group has carried out more than 100 civil disobedience acts
to protest the U.S. warfare state since September 1980 when eight peace
activistsincluding Daniel and Philip Berrigan, who had been known for their
antiwar activism in the Vietnam eraentered the General Electric plant in
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where the nose cones for the Mark 12-A
nuclear warheads were manufactured.
With hammers and blood, the eight enacted the biblical prophecies of Isaiah
(2:4) and Micah (4:3) to beat swords into plowshares by hammering on two
of the nose cones and pouring blood on documents.
Protest in support of Plowshares 8 in early 1980s. [Source:
michellewright.files.wordpress.com]
The Plowshares 8s subsequent legal battle was recreated in Emile de
Antonios 1982 film In the King of Prussia, which starred Martin Sheen and
featured appearances by the Plowshares 8 as themselves.
[Source: https://www.amazon.com/King-Prussia-Daniel-Berrigan/dp/B08C9QDB6W]
[Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084130/?ref_=tt_mv_close]
[Source: https://www.amazon.com/King-Prussia-Daniel-Berrigan/dp/B08C9QDB6W]
[Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084130/?ref_=tt_mv_close]
[Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084130/?ref_=tt_mv_close]
Since the Plowshares 8 action, others have entered military bases and
weapons facilities and symbolically and actually disarmed components of U.S.
first-strike nuclear weapons systems: the MX, Pershing II, Cruise, Minuteman
ICBMs, Trident II missiles, Trident submarines, B-52 bombers, P-3 Orion
anti-submarine aircraft, the Navstar system, the ELF communication system,
the Milstar satellite system, a nuclear capable battleship and the Aegis
destroyer.
Combat aircraft used for military intervention, such as the F-111 fighter
bomber, the F-15A fighter, the F-18 bomber, the A-10 Warthog, the Hawk
aircraft, as well as combat helicopters and other conventional weapons,
including aircraft missile launchers, bazookas, grenade throwers, and AK-5
automatic rifles, have also been targeted.
One of the most successful actions took place at the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear
facility in July 2012 when Mike Walli, Sr., Megan Rice, and Greg
Boertje-Obed hammered on the cornerstone of the newly built Highly Enriched
Uranium Materials Facility, poured blood and spray-painted antiwar messages
on it. Because of so-called security issues, this action prompted
authorities to close what has been called the Ft. Knox of Uranium, for an
unprecedented three weeks.
Megan Rice featured amidst backdrop of the Oak Ridge uranium production
facility in Tennessee, which she and two other Plowshares activists helped
shut down for three weeks in 2012. [Source: e3.365.dm.com]
According to William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project
at the Center for International Policy, the limited mainstream media
coverage of the Oak Ridge protest and Congressional reactionas with the
Kings Bay Plowshares 7 actionwere more about how to protect the weapons
from protesters than to protect us from the weapons. This rhetoric about
safety and security of the weapons complex, and protecting special
materialsa euphemism for ingredients for bombs that can end life as we
know itdistracts from the real issue: These are weapons of mass slaughter
that must be eliminated before they eliminate us.
Kings Bay Base
When the Plowshares 7 cut through a padlock and entered the 17,000 acre
Kings Bay Base on April 4, 2018, they were equipped with crime-scene tape,
banners reading The Ultimate Logic of Trident is Omnicide and Nuclear
Weapons: IllegalImmoral, and an indictment charging the U.S. government
with crimes against peace, along with the hammers and blood.
Sign, crime-scene tape and antiwar slogans left by Plowshares 7 activists at
Kings Bay Base. [Source: washingtonpost.com]
One of their main challenges was to avoid detection from the guard towers as
a loudspeaker overhead blared: Deadly force is authorized!
After splitting up, the activists went to three sites on the base: the
SWFLANT administration building, the D5 Missile monument installation, and
the nuclear weapons storage bunkers.
Patrick ONeill attached a poster of Martin Luther King, Jr., to a mock-up
of a Trident II D5 ballistic missile at the welcome area, commenting
afterwards: I mean, my God, youre gonna build a statue for something that
if its used would blow up a whole city full of people. This is your idea of
welcoming people? I mean, its sick.
SWFLANT symbol smeared with activists blood. [Source: washingtonpost.com]
Home to more than 1,000 enlisted and civilian government workers and their
families, Kings Bay houses at least six nuclear submarines, each armed with
20 Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles of the multiple
independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) variety. Each missile
contains numerous nuclear warheads, providing a thermonuclear force
multiplier and overwhelming first-strike capability as part of the U.S.
nuclear triad.
According to the Navy, the ballistic missile submarines serve as a launch
platform for intercontinental missiles that are designed specifically for
stealth and the precise delivery of nuclear warheads.
If the Trident were ever launched, it would cause 100 times more damage than
the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.
Patrick ONeill called it the most insidious and evil weapon of mass
destruction ever constructed.
Kings Bay Submarine Base. [Source: wikipedia.org]
The Kings Bay site was opened in 1979 during the presidency of Jimmy Carter,
the former Governor of Georgia and a Navy veteran and submarine officer who
promoted a naval buildup.
The decision to base the Trident submarines at Kings Bay started the largest
peacetime construction program ever undertaken by the U.S. Navy. It took
nine years to build at a cost of $1.3 billion.
In preparation for the arrival of new submarines mandated under a trillion
dollar nuclear weapon modernization program, a major renovation is coming to
the Kings Bay waterfront.
The project, estimated to cost more than $840 million, will include $500
million in upgrades to the dry dock and other infrastructure, as well as a
$138.6 million nuclear regional maintenance facility, which makes the
Plowshares work ever the more urgent.[2]
Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine stationed at the base, which is is
capable of carrying up to 20 submarine-launched ballistic missiles with
multiple warheads. [Source: americanmagazine.org]
In the Shadow of the Berrigan Brothers and Oscar Romero
Reverend Bill Wylie-Kellerman situated Clare Grady and the Plowshares 7 at
the Festival of Hope in the tradition of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, and
Oscar Romero, El Salvadors archbishop who was murdered by death squads in
1980 after he spoke out against the ruling oligarchy and for the poor and
oppressed.
Daniel and Philip Berrigan [Source: static01.nyt.com]
Archbishop Oscar Romero [Source: r.search.yahoo.com]
Cornell University historian Russell Rickford compared Grady to Mae Mallory,
an antiwar and Black Power militant who was close with Malcolm X.
Mae Mallory [Source: i1.wp.com]
Flattered by such comparisons, Grady reiterated at the Festival of Hope
that she had been motivated by religious principle and the desire to oppose
violence and the normalization of killing; the unrepentant killing that
hardly raises eyebrows anymore.
Grady noted that the U.S. government plans to spend $100,000 per minute for
the next ten years on nuclear weapons and has 800 military bases.
The cost to keep one soldier in Afghanistan for one year is one million
dollars, and the cost to keep a prisoner in prison for one year is up to
$70,000 while the cost to keep a student in college for a year is far less.
While dreading going back to prisonor what she calls the belly of the
beastGrady said she has encountered some of her best teachers of resistance
in prison, and was inspired by inmates in St. Louis who broke out of their
cells and broke windows and threw furniture but did not engage in violence
in pressing for more humane conditions.
Gradys sister Mary Ann, as the last speaker at the webinar, compared the
present moment to 1979 when the anti-nuclear movement was just getting off
the ground. By the end of the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet
Premier Mikhail Gorbachev had worked together to reduce the nuclear
stockpiles of the U.S. and Russia, which is urgently needed today.
With the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock sitting at 100
seconds to midnight. Grady said that the peace movement should continue
pushing for divestment from nuclear-weapons producing companieswhich New
Yorks City Council has recently proposedwhile supporting acts of civil
disobedience along the model of the Plowshares 7 who will have left their
mark on history.