Since the fall of last year, we in Asheville have new peace and justice activists adding new life to our cause. We see the people in Gaza being killed as tensions now stretch throughout the Middle East. This younger team of activists is making an impact on our region.
They remind us of the starvation and total destruction of an ancient culture at the hands of an occupying force armed with U.S. weapons. These activists lead rallies, mourn the dead and dying, sponsor programs and teach-ins, while building solidarity with those in Palestine, as well as those from other oppressed groups. This collective deserves our thanks and respect.
But they join others who have sacrificed and demonstrated for peace here in our region for decades before and during endless wars.
Beginning in 2003, members of WNC Veterans for Peace stood for peace in front of the former Vance Monument every Tuesday afternoon. Twenty-one years later, passersby would see their signs and banners urging drivers and walkers to, as John Lennon pleaded half a century ago, “Give peace a chance.” These vigils now are drawing to a close, but the vets and their associates intend to still be active in the community.
Until a few years ago, Women in Black did a regular silent vigil on behalf of women and their families suffering from war waged by the USA and approved by both parties’ policies, even though many of those members of Congress knew the reasons were lies.
Also here in Asheville, we witness the WNC Physicians for Social Responsibility standing in that spot educating passersby about the possible devastation caused by a nuclear war.
A younger crowd dressed in red, calling themselves the Party for Socialism and Liberation, chants slogans, marches and delivers powerful lectures in solidarity with those here and away who are suffering from injustice and oppression.
When a member of the military-industrial complex opened a 1.2 million-square-foot Pratt & Whitney (a subsidiary of RTX) plant on a hundred acres of forested land formerly owned by Biltmore Farms, another group for peace formed. They called themselves Reject Raytheon AVL. You can see them with weekly banners on Montford Avenue’s overpass above Interstate 240, reminding drivers that U.S. weapons are committing genocide on innocents in Gaza.
These local groups and many more peace and justice groups make up a culture of peace in Asheville, envied by many other communities in our mountain region. Most of us operate on a shoestring, compared to how much our country spends annually on offensive wars (over a trillion dollars). But our heroes honor diplomacy, while our elected leaders seem to salivate over “forever wars.”
Come honor those who advocate and stand for those harmed and killed by our weapons at our one day of peace, the International Day of Peace. We’ll gather at Land of the Sky United Church of Christ on Saturday, Sept. 21, at 11 a.m. to honor Asheville’s peace heroes and proclaim why we do what we do and how we can change our community and world by “giving peace a chance.”
— Rachael Bliss
Asheville
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