People for Peace, Justice, and Healing

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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)

  • What is "People for Peace, Justice, and Healing"?

    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:

    People for Peace, Justice, and Healing


    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.


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    Last updated: January 27, 2024