People for Peace, Justice, and
Healing meets on Saturday mornings at 10:00 a.m. at the Antique Sandwich Company,
5102 N. Pearl St., Tacoma, WA, 98407.
PJH has existed as a group since 2001 and
has been involved in weekly meetings, educational events, lectures,
study groups, workshops, and calls for community action.
Please consider joining us. All people of good will are welcome!
The story of Maksim and Sergei Members of PJH have contributed to an effort to help two refugees from the war in Ukraine who risked their lives on the high seas to leave Russia and shortly after arriving in the United States found themselves detained in Tacoma's Northwest Detention Center. On Jan. 23, 2023, The Economist's award-winning digital magazine 1843 featured an article about their astonishing feat and their arrival in the U.S. (1/31/23)
Poem by Sol Riou Sol Riou's
poem "We Are All the Leaves of One Tree" was published in the Winter/Spring 2018 issue
of The Mindfulness Bell (Issue 77, p. 39). The
poem is posted here with the author's permission. (3/8/18)
RING THE CHIMES for Marriage Equality PPJH held a very successful fundraiser for Referendum
74 (Marriage Equality) on Wed., Sept. 5, 2012, raising more than $5,000. Special guest: Ryan Mello, Pierce County Co-Chair of Washington United and
Tacoma City Councilmember. Also in attendance: Washington State Senator Debbie Regala.
(8/7/12; rev. 9/9/12)
Poem by Karen Konrad Karen Konrad's
untitled poem begins "It is time to awaken..." (See
below for several other poems.) (8/6/05)
Two poems by Karen Havnaer Two poems by poet and playwright Karen Havnaer are published here
for the first time. People of Sadr City is addressed
to the inhabitants of a district of Baghdad. For Sgt. Brian Turner — Third Brigade, Second Infantry Division,
is dedicated to a visitor to PPJH who is now a well-known poet.
The Northwest Detention Center See
the UFPPC website for more information
about the Tacoma's prison, the
"Northwest Detention Center," located at 1623
E. "J" St. The prison was built by
a Sarasota, Florida, corporation with an extremely problematic
record, Correctional Services Corporation (NASDAQ symbol: CSCQ), and
purchased
by a rival firm, Geo, in July 2005. -- This sinister complex of windowless
buildings built on a
Superfund site whose toxic effects may still be posing risks to
detainees and employees alike.
All Tacoma residents owe it to themselves to see it in person.
Given our heritage of "the Tacoma Method" (1885) and
Executive Order 9066 (Feb. 19, 1942), we owe it to ourselves -- and
to others -- to be vigilant. (3/10/04; revised 1/31/23)
What is People for Peace, Justice and Healing, anyway?
United for Peace of Pierce County
United for Peace of Pierce County was founded on Nov. 14, 2002, to
oppose nonviolently a war on Iraq. UFPPC was the organizer of a
successful March around the Mall on Dec. 8, 2002, and of a full afternoon of
anti-war and pro-peace activities on Feb. 15, 2003, which included a rally
with speakers and singers in McKinley Park, a march from McKinley Park to the
Federal Courthouse in which more than a thousand people particpated, and an
elaborate and unprecedented Celebration of Peace in the Washington State
History Museum from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Like the March around the Mall before it, UFPPC's events made the front page in
News
Tribune. Tacoma was one of more than five hundred cities
around the world participating in the largest peace demonstration
in the history of humanity.
Some photographs:
No Iraq War sign (Tom Bates)
Vance Lelli performing (Tom Bates)
Rally at the Federal Courthouse (Adam Bray)
The "No Iraq War" plane! (Adam Bray)
People for Peace, Justice, and Healing is a group of people living in or near Tacoma that began meeting in September 2001.
If you are concerned about
the direction this country has taken and are interested in local
efforts to help this nation return to its core values of
liberty and justice for all, we hope you will consider joining
us in seeking paths that
lead to peace, justice, and healing for the United States of
America and for the world.
The principal locus of action of People for Peace, Justice, and
Healing is the weekly Saturday morning meeting, where we share concerns and plan
activities. We have been involved in educational events, lectures,
study groups, workshops, and calls for community action.
Please consider joining us next Saturday morning. All people of good
will are welcome.
How does PJH function? We are a deliberately leaderless
group in which decisions are made by consensus at the weekly
Saturday meetings. We always welcome new participants.
A word about "healing" and beliefs. People for
Peace, Justice, and Healing does not advocate a particular set of beliefs,
is not pursuing a political program, and does not endorse candidates
in political campaigns. We call on all people
of good will to join us in trying to further our common
understanding of the challenges we face in finding the paths to
lasting peace and social justice. But valuing peace, justice,
and the health of the earth are not, in our opinion, enough.
We live in a nation born of
a bright dream, but also marred from the start by the historic
wrongs of genocide and slavery -- wrongs that have for too
long been denied or neglected.
Leadership in our contemporary society, misshapen by the powerful and
violent institutions of patriarchy, exploitation, and militarism,
continues to be marked by the manipulation and reinforcement
of patterns of prejudice and
fear that help maintain these institutions. PJHers tend to
believe that peaceful progress toward addressing these matters
depends on finding ways to heal the wounds
that have too often blighted and stymied our dearest hopes.
This is not always possible, of course,
and our efforts often fail to bear immediate fruit.
But we trust in their long-term efficacy nevertheless. Our emphasis on
"healing" signifies a recognition that progress toward peace and
justice, if it is to be enduring, must involve learning about the harm
that has been done (and is being done). Reconciliation can only come
through acknowledgment of the truth, however painful that may sometimes be.
Poetry for Peace, Justice, and Healing
the path of sideways trees and
my tribe has many fingers were
written by PJHer Karen Konrad.
Jerusalem was written by PJHer Sheila Renton.
Iraq Is Like Crack,
Pox Americana,
Dominoes Again,
I Turn to Prayer, and It Must
Be Fate, all inspired by the American adventure in Iraq, were
written by R.P. Ericksen, a professor of history at Pacific Lutheran
University.
SNOW member Ann Evans's On the
Playground has been selected for inclusion in a forthcoming anthology of
anti-war poetry.
PJHer Ann Philis Murphy read The
Path of Peace aloud on Feb. 8.
UFPPC Member Duane Niatum reflects on Auden's famous dictum that
"Poetry makes nothing happen" in a poem dedicated to
Elizabeth Bishop:
Speaking with
an Elder Poet on an Anti-War Poem. In another poem,
For Friends Living along the Walla Walla
River, Niatum speaks of his search for "songs that
would . . . break my wolf's journey to blood tracks."
Unfortunately, W.H.
Auden's September 1, 1939 has
taken on new meaning in recent months.
Robert Bly's recent poem on the Iraq war is entitled
Call and Answer.
A website of poetry against the war has been created:
Poets
Against the War.
Cartoon Corner
Jack Kus presents:
On September 21, 2002, People for Peace, Justice, and Healing
was one of the first groups to organizationally affiliate
with Sound Nonviolent Opponents of
War (SNOW -- 'gentle, but it can shut down a city'), a regional
coalition formed in Seattle on September 18, 2002.
Comments or suggestions for the People for Peace, Justice, and
Healing website?
Click here to write the
webmaster, or call 253-756-7519.
Last updated: January 27, 2024
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