Blockading the Bombmakers With My Mother and Grace Paley

Poster from the action

On Monday, June 14 during the War Resisters League organized civil disobedience at the nuclear nations missions to the United Nations, my mother (Elma Paneth) and I protested the nuclear arms race and got arrested together. Three years earlier, Mom had been inspired by legendary activists from Holliston, Massachusetts - Joe and Izzy Hines - when they participated in the Wall Street action. Protests were not limited to young people and Mom had decided that next time she was going. She got her non-violence training in New York and I arranged with my Boston affinity group that she could join us. A couple of my friends decided to join our group at the last minute.

We got up at the crack of dawn to go downtown. At 181st Street, on the A train platform, led by Harry Levine of Citizen's Band, we began to sing Al Giordano’s song based on the anarchist Emma Goldman’s famous quotation: “If I can’t dance I don’t want to be, In your revolution, That’s no solution, If I can’t sing and shout, You can count me out, And I’ll dance my way to freedom” and “If there is some struggle, there can be some progress,” based on the words of abolitionist Frederick Douglass.[1]

We got down to the U.N. to find the police were guiding protesters to an “official area” to be “officially arrested.” They were carefully placing people on stretchers and carrying them away to buses. It was very orchestrated, but luckily my affinity group had a number of experienced protesters, so we formed a circle to discuss the situation and decided to walk around and see what was happening elsewhere. Perhaps there was a better place for us to sit down and lodge our protest.

We learned that people were accessing their offices at the U.S. Mission through a nearby hotel. An all women’s affinity group from the Women’s Pentagon Action, which included veteran activist and writer Grace Paley, was already weaving colored threads through the doors to close them off. We sat down and blocked the doors as the women wove the threads. People could not get in or out. “No business as usual. Call in sick of bombs,” we told them and then we began to sing. People got mad because they were missing planes, trains, and business appointments.

The police appeared. One police officer began to pull on a member of my group (Wattie Taylor) so hard that he ripped his raincoat. I called (loudly) to my friend Russell who was our support person to “Get badge numbers!” Another officer intervened to stop the roughing up and then I was dragged onto a waiting bus. Grace Paley and the others were soon brought to the bus.

I looked out the window for my mother. She had moved back against the wall of the building. I was worried she would get left behind. I walked to the front of the bus to speak with the police officer stationed there. I asked him, “Could you do me a favor?” He looked at me, typical New York City cop, totally unfazed, and said: “Yeah, what?”

I asked, “Could you please go arrest my mother?” He didn’t bat an eye, “Which one is she?” he asked. “Over there, in the dress and the sweater,” I said, pointing. He called another officer over and told him to, “Go get that lady over there.” The officer escorted Mom to the bus and she danced onto the bus and sat down laughing. Grace Paley went over to her thinking she was perhaps upset at being arrested, but my mother assured her, “Oh no, I’m laughing.” After Grace Paley came over to make sure she was o.k., Mom said to me “Omigod, that’s Grace Paley, do you know how far back she goes?”

A woman in our affinity group turned out to be a nun. She had not told us that she was a nun. I found out on the bus, when my mother pointed it out to me. The police officer was treating her with reverence, as if she were made of glass. He spoke to her calling her “Sister,” “Sister, please come this way.” I saw the gold ring with the cross in it on her finger.

The police took us all the way to Brooklyn. As the bus moved off, Wattie said, “Let’s all sit on one side and tip it over.” My mother thought he was hilarious. The police began to write out parking ticket citations. They were moving very slowly and didn’t seem to want to have to cite all of us. It was a lot to write out. Reverend Frank Dorman, a very experienced protester, sized up the situation. He stood up and nonchalantly walked off the bus. I saw what he had done and I did the same thing. Several others followed.

My mother waited for her citation. Once we were all off the bus, we formed a circle to make a quick decision. Most of us decided to go back up to the U.N. Mom took herself out for a cup of coffee, instead, to absorb her experience in peace and quiet. Later Mom told me that after we all took off and she was in a Chock Full o’Nuts having her coffee, a woman asked her, “How did it go?” The woman had been on the subway platform at 181st street and had seen us singing, she was a waitress at the luncheonette and recognized my mother.

We stopped into a municipal building to use the bathrooms on our way back to the U.N. We saw a long line of middle-aged black men seeking day work from the city waiting quietly, there were hundreds of men needing work. When we went back to the U.N., we saw our arresting officers hanging around, they were sitting all sprawled out, with their backs leaning up against a building. They recognized us and laughed, “You thought we didn’t see you walking off the bus.” We all laughed. We knew they let us go. There was camaraderie between the police and protesters at that demonstration. I have in old notes that on June 12th I had talked with several police officers and asked them how they felt about the protests. They all told me they were with us, that survival was the most important thing. My husband tells me that he heard a story from those days that the police had scolded protest organizers who were squabbling amongst themselves for months, telling them to get their act together and organize the protest because their wives and daughters were all going.

Weeks later, when my mother went to court for her misdemeanor citation, she told the judge that she felt her action was absolutely morally justified. The judge looked down at her from his bench and said, “I happen to agree with you, and this charge is unconditionally dismissed!” She was very pleased.

[1] The quote is “If there is no struggle, there is no progress” but it was amended to be “more positive” by Harry Levine, of the west coast group Citizens Band. If I Can’t Dance is a signature song of the band. Harry was in my graduating class at college.