My mother passed away before the advent of the
Berrigan brothers. Had she been alive I am sure they would have been given the same label.
For those who followed the lives of the
Berrigan brothers, whether as admirers and supporters or as critics who saw their protests as capers and street theater, the letters serve as backdrops to their prehensile ministry that included faith-based service and writing.
This difference was personified in the case of the
Berrigan brothers, whose public peace witness, inclusive of pouring their own blood on military draft cards, invoked a long history of Catholic martyrdom and redemptive suffering.
She saw rampant clericalism and patriarchalism in the way the
Berrigan brothers were the center of attention.
With engaging prose and good-natured wit, Tripp York tells the life stories of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Clarence Jordan, and the
Berrigan brothers in his book Living on Hope While Living in Babylon: The Christian Anarchists of the Twentieth Century.
Moore traces his politics back to his Catholic upbringing and his boyhood admiration for radical priests such as the
Berrigan brothers. He even has a good word for the nuns at his school.
Martin Luther King, the
Berrigan brothers, or Sister Helen Prejean?
He does, however, illustrate how the Camden action followed in the wake of several Selective Service raids, most famously by the
Berrigan brothers and the rest of the Catonsville Nine.
Then as now, the grassroots nature of this movement disappeared in the shadow of the
Berrigan brothers' fame.
His clients included Judith Coplon, Daniel Ellsberg, the
Berrigan brothers, Fidel Castro, the Chilean government under Allende, and the Socialist Workers Party.
Wittner also gives direct action groups their due, citing the work of the
Berrigan brothers and Women's Strike for Peace, among others.
The response was overwhelmingly positive, although some found the choices controversial and many nominated their own rebels (some of whom will indeed be in the book), to wit: Russell Means (and a list of "noncitizens" that included Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Geronimo, Cochise and ten more Native Americans), Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Lennie Tristano, Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, the
Berrigan brothers, Helen Woodson, Ernest and Marion Bromley, Dave Dellinger, Maurice McCracklin, A.J.