Photo: Jim Forest
The Milwaukee 14, Sept. 24, 1968
The Milwaukee 14, Sept. 24, 1968
On the night of Sept. 24, 1968, 14 anti-war activists slipped into the Downtown offices housing several of Milwaukee’s draft boards, stole Selective Service records and brought them outside. As the draft records burned in a bonfire, the activists sang songs and recited scripture as they waited to be arrested. Most of the 14 were Roman Catholics. Five were priests. One member of the 14, Jim Forest, who continued working against violence throughout his life, died last month. He will be honored with an event in Milwaukee.
Dubbed the Milwaukee 14, they followed the nonviolent approach to social action exemplified by Martin Luther King and John Lewis. They did not break into the Selective Service office in the Brumder Building (now called the Germania Building, 135 W. Wells St.) but politely borrowed a key from the cleaning woman. They weren’t terrorists who struck and ran but willingly assumed the full legal consequences of their raid on the draft board offices. They were sentenced to two years in prison.
Photo: Jim Forest
Jim Forest
Jim Forest
Planning for their action began at Casa Maria, the Milwaukee house of the Catholic Workers, a movement stressing the radical social implications of Jesus’ teachings usually ignored by Christianity. Motivating the Milwaukee 14 was the ongoing Vietnam War, largely fought by an army of working class and minority conscripts. During their trial, the 14 were cheered by antiwar activists at UW-Milwaukee but denounced by the city’s common council. The Milwaukee Journal called their action “inexcusable hooliganism.”
After serving his sentence, Jim Forest authored several books, including a biography of Catholic Workers’ founder Dorothy Day. He converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in the ‘80s and founded the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, an international group seeking to apply their faith’s deepest principles to resolving division and conflict between individuals and among societies and nations.
Forest spoke several times in Milwaukee during the past quarter-century at Marquette University and at Saints Cyril & Methodius Orthodox Church.
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“In a time when we have grown so distracted with culture wars yet very unreflective about real wars and the self-righteousness and arrogance that drives us to accept them, it is refreshing to look to the example of someone who firmly yet gently always radiated a commitment to peace,” says Father Elijah Mueller, pastor of Saints Cyril & Methodious. “Peace in society, peace in the heart, and real tangible peace between nations. We have also lost the sense that these principles are worth going to jail for.”
He adds that Forest’s quest for peace came not from “mere ideas but a beautiful, personal sense of a God who empowers each person to fearlessly and victoriously overcome violence by divine Peace.”
A memorial service for Forest will be held at 4:30 p.m., Feb. 19 at Saints Cyril & Methodious, 2515 S. 30th St. Church doors open at 4. “People can informally share reflections and memories before the service,” Mueller says.
