Woman, 91, arrested at Vt. nuke plant

http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/massachusetts/woman,-91,-arrested-at-vt.-nuke-plant

Woman, 91, arrested at Vt. nuke plant

Updated: Wednesday, 11 Aug 2010, 3:06 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 11 Aug 2010, 3:06 PM EDT

VERNON, Vt. (AP) - A 91-year-old Massachusetts woman was among eight people arrested protesting at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon.

Frances Crowe of Northampton, Mass., and the others were arrested Tuesday after they walked past the main gate at Vermont Yankee. They read a statement calling for the closure of Vermont's only nuclear plant.

A spokeswoman for the group says Crowe has been arrested nine times, seven times at Vermont Yankee since 2005.

Local and state police arrested the women and took them to the Vernon police station where they were cited and released. They're due in court next month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Crowe

Frances Crowe (b. Carthage, Missouri, 1919) is a prominent American peace activist and pacifist from the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.
Contents

* 1 Early life
* 2 Career and activism
* 3 Awards
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 External links
o 6.1 Listening

Early life

Crowe holds degrees from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri (1939) and Syracuse University (1941), and conducted graduate work at Columbia University and The New School for Social Research.

She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. She married Thomas Crowe in 1945 and has three children.

Career and activism

Crowe worked in a factory during World War II. In 1945, following the bombing of civilian populations in Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, she became a peace activist. Her participation in numerous protests has led to arrests, trials, and imprisonment. She has been active in the Society of Friends, American Friends Service Committee, and War Resisters League, and co-founded the Traprock Peace Center (based in Deerfield, Massachusetts) and the Committee to End Apartheid (based in Springfield, Massachusetts). In the 1960s, she founded the Northampton, Massachusetts chapter of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Sane Nuclear Policy Committee, and the Valley Peace Center (based in Amherst, Massachusetts), and has also participated in the activities of Women Against the War and Amnesty International.

In 1967, during the Vietnam War, she worked as a draft counselor, providing counseling to over 2,000 people about applying for conscientious objector status by the war's end.<1> She continues to be an advocate for conscientious objectors. Stating that she cannot pay for killing, she has become a war tax refuser since the beginning of the Iraq War.<2> She is also one of the core members of the Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq.

Crowe has been active in the movement against nuclear power in New England since the 1970s.<1> In September 2009, Crowe and three other women were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.<2>

Awards

For her lifelong commitment to the Peace Movement and her unrelenting opposition to war through war tax resistance and eco-pacifist lifestyle, she was awarded the Courage of Conscience award May 4, 2007, by the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Massachusetts.<3> An archive of her papers is kept at the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.<3>

See also

* Harvey Wasserman
* List of anti-nuclear protests in the United States

References

1. ^ Michael Kenney. Tracking the protest movements that had roots in New England The Boston Globe, December 30, 2009.
2. ^ Eeesha Williams. Protesters Arrested at Vermont Yankee Valley Post, September 29, 2009.
3. ^ The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Recipients List

External links

* Frances Crowe page
* Frances Crowe Papers at Smith College
* Additional Frances Crowe information

Listening

* Frances Crowe interview
* Frances Crowe presentation from "I am a Conscientious Objector," Traprock Peace Center's Veterans Program held at Greenfield Community College, Greenfield, Massachusetts, November 11, 2004
* Frances Crowe speech on promoting and using alternative media at Rally for Peace in Brattleboro, Vermont, July 30, 2006

Categories: 1919 births | American tax resisters | American anti-war activists | American pacifists | Stephens College people | American Quakers | Syracuse University alumni | Living people | People from Northampton, Massachusetts