Kathy Kelly (born 1953) is an American peace activist, pacifist and author, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and currently a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She has been described as "probably the most respected leader in the American peace movement." [1]. As part of peace team work in several countries, she has traveled to Iraq twenty-six times, notably remaining in combat zones during the early days of both US-Iraq wars. She has been arrested more than sixty times at home and abroad, and written feelingly of her experiences among targets of U.S. military bombardment and inmates of U.S. prisons. She lives in Chicago.

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Biography

Childhood and Schooling and Poverty Work 1953-1978

Kelly was born in 1953 in Chicago's Garfield Ridge neighborhood to parents Frank and Catherine Kelly. ^[2] She attended St. Paul-Kennedy "shared-time" high school, which split her days between a catholic institution where she was given the writings of Daniel Berrigan and Martin Luther King Jr. to read alongside biblical texts ^[3], and a desegregating public school where interracial violence was common ^[4]. She obtained her BA from Loyola University working a succession of night jobs to help cover tuition, including a stint on a meat-packing factory line which has helped her to remain a lifelong vegetarian. During these years she remembers being deeply moved by Alain Resnais' holocaust documentary Night and Fog, by a lecture by Vietnam War activist Tom Cornell, and by the activist scripture writings of William Stringfellow. ^[5]

Poverty and Peace Activist 1978-1996

After college in 1978, and while working on her MA in Religious Education (at Chicago Theological Seminary,) Kelly began volunteer work in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood (where she still resides), working at a local soup kitchen with a circle of activists, including future SOAW founder Roy Bourgeois, centered around Chicago's Francis of Assisi House , a homeless shelter in the Catholic Worker tradition. In 1980 she began work as a teacher of religion at St. Ignatius College Prep . ^[6]

In 1982 she married fellow activist Karl Meyer and began a lifetime of "war tax resistance" (refusal to pay federal taxes on pacifist grounds), asking her employer to reduce her salary beneath the taxable income. ^[7] A Jesuit professional development grant enabled her to travel to Nicaraqua in 1985 and participate in a fast led by Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto against U.S.-backed Contra activity ^[8]. Returning to the U.S., she left St. Ignatius in 1986 in order to focus on activism ^[9] including two years as a teacher in Uptown's Prologue High School serving marginalized low-income youth ^[10] .

In August 1988, Kelly participated in the Missouri Peace Planting, trespassing at a nuclear missile silo near Kansas City, Missouri to plant corn on it. For this action she served nine months in a Lexington, KY maximum security prison. ^[11]

In 1990 she joined the Gulf Peace Team, a delegation assembled to protest the imminent Persian Gulf War and spent the first 14 days of the air war encamped on the Iraq-Saudi border before evacuation to Baghdad and then Amman in Jordan where she helped coordinate relief work. Kelly helped organize, and herself participated in, several nonviolent direct action teams in war zones outside Iraq: Bosnia in December 1992 and August 1993, and Haiti in the summer of 1994. She and Meyer divorced in 1994 although they have continued as friends.

Voices in the Wilderness 1996-2003

In 1993, after her return from Bosnia, Kelly became a full-time caregiver to her father, assisted (until his death in 2000) by a network of former Iraq peace team members now living in and around her and her father's shared Uptown apartment. ^[12] In late 1995 Kelly and several other of these activists resolved to form Voices in the Wilderness , a campaign to end the U.S./U.N sanctions regime against Iraq. In a January 1996 letter, the activists wrote then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno a letter declaring an intention to travel to Iraq with food and medicine in violation of the sanctions. A return letter threatened the participants with separate 12-year prison sentences and fines of one million dollars each. ^[13]

Between 1996 and 2003 Voices organized over seventy delegations to Iraq bringing food and medicine directly to Iraqi citizens in deliberate violation of both UN-imposed economic sanctions and US law. Participants refused to pay fines for these actions but instead solicited matching donations from supporters for supplies to distribute on repeat visits. Members sought to raise awareness at home with demonstrations, media appearances, and personal accounts of their delegation work. Kelly went on 26 of these delegations. ^[13]

Voices work was chiefly focused on, but not exclusive to, Iraq: In April 2002 Kelly and her fellow activists, walking on foot and engaging in repeated negotiations with Israeli Defense Force officers, became the first internationals to visit the Jenin refugee camp after learning, while on peace team work in the West Bank, of the recent attack there and what she described as its heavy civilian toll after observing it first-hand.

In March 2003, Kelly returned to Baghdad shortly before the start of the Gulf War, witnessing the Shock and Awe bombardment, and remaining for two months. She narrated her experiences of bombardment for Westerners via antiwar and religious witness websites. When the air war gave way to a ground invasion, she and other activists were present to greet arriving U.S. soldiers with dates and water. ^[11]

In November of that same year Kelly joined 43 other activists crossing illegally into the Fort Benning U.S. Army base as part of the annual School of the Americas Watch vigil, and incurred a three month prison sentence which she carried out in Illinois' Pekin Prison in 2004, to which she was seen off by longtime friend Studs Terkel ^[2]. Her experiences in prison resulted in many of the essays collected in her book Other Lands Have Dreams , published in 2005.

Voices in the Wilderness was eventually assigned a $20,000 fine by the U.S. government which it refused to pay. In 2005, the group Voices for Creative Nonviolence was formed to continue challenging U.S. military and economic warfare against Iraq and other countries.

Voices for Creative Nonviolence 2005-present

Voices for Creative Nonviolence has organized numerous fasts and peace walks and sent several delegations to meet with Iraqi refugees in countries neighboring Iraq, especially Jordan. In the summer of 2006, Kelly and other Voices activists traveled to Lebanon during the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah, reporting from the capital city of Beirut and then, once the cease-fire was declared, from damaged villages in the country's south.

In 2007 VCNV initiated the "Occupation Project," in which activists in 25 states occupied the offices of 39 Senators and congressional Representatives whom they regarded as insufficiently committed to defunding the Iraq war. In the campaign's first ten weeks participants incurred 320 arrests. The 2008 presidential campaign season saw a corresponding campaign targeting candidates' offices, and "Witness Against War," a march from Chicago to the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN. Kelly helped organize a 19-day "Camp Hope: Countdown to Change" winter vigil two blocks from the Chicago home of then-President-Elect Barack Obama, but Kelly spent much of the length of the vigil in the Gaza Strip, living with a family dangerously near to the area under heaviest bombardment from Israeli forces during the 22-day Operation Cast Lead assaults.

In protest to UAV attacks in Pakistan, in an event sponsored by Nevada Desert Experience, Father Louie Vitale, Kelly, Stephen Kelly, SJ, Eve Tetaz, John Dear, and others were arrested outside Creech Air Force Base on Wednesday April 9, 2009 ^{[17] [18]}.

Author and Speaker

Kelly has reported on her time on peace teams and in prison in numerous articles for peace and religious journals, and for websites such as CounterPunch and CommonDreams.org. Several of her essays have appeared in books on the Iraq War. In 2005 she authored "Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison" (CounterPunch), collecting and expanding on her letters from Iraq and from prison. She is co-author of "Prisoners on Purpose: a Peacemakers Guide to Jails and Prison." (Progressive Foundation:1989), and co-editor of "War and Peace in the Gulf"(Spokesman:2001). She spends much of her time touring the country on speaking engagements for schools, churches, festivals ^[19], and activist groups from whom she accepts but does not require a stipend. Associates have commented in interviews on her heavy work and travel schedule, noting in one instance that "Jail is the only place she can rest." Her latest articles have focused on the Iraqi refugee crisis in Amman, Jordan and the January 2009 Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

Education

• B.A. Loyola University at Chicago 1974
• Masters in Religious Education, Chicago Theological Seminary; part of a consortium of schools which included the Jesuit School of Theology at Chicago where Kelly took courses each quarter

Awards

• Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace Award, 1998
• Newberry Library Free Speech Award, 1998
• Detroit City Council Testimonial Resolution commending humanitarian efforts, February 1999
• Robert O. Cooper Fellowship in Peace and Justice Award, Southern Methodist University March 1999
• University of the Incarnate Word Distinguished Speaker Award March 1999
• California State Assembly Certificate of Recognition for Founding of Voices in the Wilderness November 1999
• Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award, 1999
• Consortium on Peace Research and Development Social Courage Award, 1999
• Dan Berrigan Award, DePaul University 1999
• Office of the Americas Peace and Justice Award November 1999
• International Fellowship of Reconciliation Pfeiffer Peace Award, February 2000
• Nobel Peace Prize Nominee with Denis Halliday 2000
• Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee Humanitarian Award June 2000
• Nobel Peace Prize Nominee 2001
• Chaldean Iraqi American Association of Michigan Appreciation Award for Dedication in Lifting Sanctions Against Iraq July 2001
• Newberry Library "1st place" orator – Bughouse Square Debates August 2001
• Life for Relief and Development Humanitarian Services Award September 2001
• Global Exchange International Women's Rights Awardee May 2003
• Archbishop Oscar Romero Award, Mercyhurst College March 2003
• Nobel Peace prize Nominee, with Voices in the Wilderness 2003
• Call to Action Leadership Award, with Voices in the Wilderness 2003
• Thomas Merton Center Award, Pittsburgh, PA 2003
• Adela Dwyer St. Thomas of Villanova Peace Award, Villanova University, Voices in the Wilderness 2003
• William Scarlett Award from The Witness, Voices in the Wilderness 2003
• Association of Chicago Priests, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Common Ground Award with Voices in the Wilderness 2004
• First Annual Award for Justice on behalf of the Religious Orders Partnership given to Kathy Kelly and Voices in the Wilderness
• Cranbrook Peace Foundation Annual Peace Award 2004
• Houston Peace and Justice Center National Peacemaker Award
• Peace Seeker of the Year 2005, Montana Peace Seekers Network
• Doctor of Theology honoris causa from Chicago Theological Seminary awarded May 14, 2005
• Honorary degree awarded from Lewis University, May 15, 2005
• Elliott Black Award for 2006 awarded by the American Ethical Union
• De Paul Center for Church/State Studies 2007 John Courtney Murray Award April 2007
• Bradford-O'Neill Medallion for Social Justice Recipient, Dominican University September 2007
• The Oscar Romero Award presented by Pax Christi Maine October 2007

Quotes

From Baghdad on March 19, 2003 - "I suppose I’m more prepared than most of my companions for the grueling roar of warplanes, the thuds that threaten eardrums, the noise of antiaircraft and exploding 'massive ordnance.' Compared to average Iraqis my age, I’ve tasted only a small portion of war, but I’m not a complete stranger ... I feel passionately prepared to insist that war is never an answer. But nothing can prepare me or anyone else for what we could possibly say to the children who will suffer in the days and nights ahead. What can you say to a child who is traumatized, or maimed, or orphaned, or dying? Perhaps only the words we’ve murmured over and over at the bedsides of dying children in Iraqi hospitals. 'I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.'" ^[20].

"One way to stop the next war is to continue to tell the truth about this one."

"One of the most important "Spiritual Directors" in my life has been the Internal Revenue Service ... finding ways to live without owning property, relying on savings, or growing attached to a job ... Becoming a war tax refuser was one of the simplest decisions I've ever made." ^[21]

"I want to be in touch with the people caught in a war at home. The war against the poor." ^[22]

Bibliography, editing, and contributions

• Kelly, Kathy. Other Lands Have Dreams: from Baghdad to Pekin Prison (Counterpunch Press, 2005)
• Kelly, Kathy. "Raising Voices: The Children of Iraq, 1990-1999" in Arnove, Anthony (ed.) Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, South End Press, 2000.
• Ferner, Mike. "Courage Under Fire," in Inside the Red Zone, Praeger:2006, pp. 85-91
• Sinker, Daniel. "Voices in the Wilderness," in We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet:The Collected Interviews. Akashic Books, 2001. pp. 267-279
• War and Peace in the Gulf (Cornerstone Press, 2001)
• Live from Palestine (Edited by Nancy Stohlman and Laurieann Aladin, 2003)

References

1. Terry, p.29
2. Terry, p.18
3. Terry, p. 19
4. ''Other Lands Have Dreams'', p.14
5. ''OLHD'', pp.15-16
6. Terry, p.19
7. Terry, p.28
8. ''OHLD'', pp.18-19
9. ''OHLD'', p.19
10. ''OHLD'', p.21
11. Terry, p.16
12. ''OHLD'', p.23
13. ''OHLD'', p.24
14. ''OHLD'', p.24
15. Terry, p.16
16. Terry, p.18
17. VCNV
18. Ground the Drones
19. Exitzine "Review of Cornerstone 2001"
20. Kelly, Kathy "The Illness of Victors." ''CommonDreams.org''
21. ''OHLD'', p.18
22. Terry, p.33