Molly Rush

Last updated

Molly Rush is a Catholic anti-war, civil and women's rights activist born in 1935. She co-founded the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, along with Larry Kessler in 1972, She was one of the Plowshares eight defendants. They faced trial after an anti-nuclear weapons symbolic action at a nuclear missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. [1] [2]

Contents

Life and activism

Rush grew up in Pittsburgh and has been a member of civil rights organizations including the Catholic Interracial Council, Allegheny County Council on Civil Rights and National Organization for Women. [2] She co-founded the Thomas Merton Peace & Justice Center in 1972. She participated in the first local Take Back the Night march to protest violence against women in 1976. [3] Rush was a delegate to the National Women’s Conference in Houston in 1977. [1]

Plowshares action

In 1980 Rush, with seven others, Daniel Berrigan, Phillip Berrigan, Carl Kabat, Elmer Mass, Anne Montgomery, John Schuchardt and Dean Hammer entered a GE plant that manufactured delivery systems for hydrogen bombs in King of Prussia, PA. [1] The protesters then pounded on the cone of an Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warhead to protest the nuclear arms race. Rush and the other seven were arrested. Rush was in jail for 11 weeks until two Pittsburgh religious orders, the Sisters of Mercy and the Sister of St. Joseph, provided security for her bail. [2] She was sentenced to 2 to 5 years. After 10 years of appeals, she was re-sentenced to time served. A film on the trial, In the King of Prussia, defendants played themselves. Martin Sheen was the Judge.

Awards and recognition

She was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania in 2011 by Governor Tom Corbett. [4] and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Coalition Award in 1990, [2] Fannie Lou Hamer Award from Women for Racial & Economic Equality in 1994, the Mother Jones Award from the PA Labor History Society in 2003, the YWCA Tribute to Women award in 2003 and the Just Harvest Award in 2004. [4]

Play

A play about her life, Molly's Hammer was written by Tammy Ryan and is based on the book Hammer of Justice: Molly Rush and Plowshares Eight [2] by Liane Ellison Norman. Depicted in the play are the actions leading up to the 78 days Rush spent in Pennsylvania jails in 1980 as a result of her involvement in the Plowshares Eight's assault of a missile at General Electric Co. plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. [5] [6] She shared a story from Hammer of Justice in the book ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance, published in 2024. [7]

Film

Emile de Antonio's 1982 film In the King of Prussia, which starred Martin Sheen and Molly Rush appeared as herself. [8] Rush was featured in the documentaries The Pursuit of Happiness [9] and The Trial of the AVCO Plowshares, [10] [11] by Global Village Video.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Berrigan</span> American anti-war activist (1923–2002)

Philip Francis Berrigan was an American peace activist and Catholic priest with the Josephites. He engaged in nonviolent, civil disobedience in the cause of peace and nuclear disarmament and was often arrested.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gandhi Peace Award</span> Peace award presented by Promoting Enduring Peace

The Gandhi Peace Award is an award and cash prize presented annually since 1960 by Promoting Enduring Peace to individuals for "contributions made in the promotion of international peace and good will." It is named in honor of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, but has no personal connection to Mohandas Gandhi or his family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Berrigan</span> American poet and religious activist (1921–2016)

Daniel Joseph Berrigan was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, Christian pacifist, playwright, poet, and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plowshares movement</span> Christian pacifist movement

The Plowshares movement is an anti-nuclear weapons and Christian pacifist movement that advocates active resistance to war. The group often practices a form of protest that involves the damaging of weapons and military property. The movement gained notoriety in the early 1980s when several members damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and were subsequently convicted. The name refers to the text of prophet Isaiah who said that swords shall be beaten into plowshares.

The Thomas Merton Award has been awarded since 1972 by the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Social Justice in Pittsburgh, United States. It is named after Thomas Merton and is given annually to "national and international individuals struggling for justice."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Dear</span> American Catholic peace activist

John Dear is an American Catholic priest and peace activist. He has been arrested 85 times in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war, injustice, nuclear weapons.

Clare Grady is an American peace activist and a member of the Catholic Worker and the Plowshares movements. She advocated against use of cruise missiles for first-strike capability in the 1983 Griffiss Plowshares action. In the process of the protest, military equipment was damaged and splattered with blood. In 2003, she and three others made up The Saint Patrick's Day Four, who conducted a protest action at a military recruiting center in Lansing, New York against the impending Iraq War. She participated in the Kings Bay Plowshares action on April 4, 2018, which resulted in a conviction and sentence of one year and a day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Kabat</span> American anti-nuclear activist (1933–2022)

Carl K. Kabat was an American priest of the Catholic religious order Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, best known for his eccentric, nonviolent protests against nuclear weapons. He served more than 17 years total in prison over his lifetime.

Macy Morse was an American activist in the non-violent peace and anti-nuclear movements. She died in July 2019 at the age of 98.

In the King of Prussia is a 1983 film directed and written by Emile de Antonio. The film reconstructs the events of the 1980s "Plowshares Eight". The group of anti-war activists were charged with the September 1980 destruction of nose cones designed for nuclear warheads at the Re-Entry Division of the General Electric Space Technology Center in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The members of the Plowshares Eight, including Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Anne Montgomery, and Molly Rush, played themselves while actors played the roles of jurors, lawyers and police; Martin Sheen played the role of the judge in this shot-on-video feature.

The Thomas Merton Center is a non-profit grassroots organization in Pittsburgh whose mission to build and support collaborative movements that empower marginalized populations to advance collective liberation from oppressive systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackie Hudson</span> Catholic nun and anti-nuclear activist (1934–2011)

Jacqueline Marie "Jackie" Hudson, was an American Dominican sister and anti-nuclear activist. She spent the first 29 years of her working career as a music teacher. After her retirement from education, she dedicated her life to anti-war activism, during the course of which her actions led her to be arrested several times. In 2011, after a decline in her health in prison, Hudson died from multiple myeloma at the age of 76.

Carol Gilbert, O.P., is an American Dominican religious sister and anti-nuclear activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Megan Rice</span> American activist (1930–2021)

Megan Gillespie Rice S.H.C.J. was an American nuclear disarmament activist, Catholic nun, and former missionary. She was notable for illegally entering the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at the age of 82, with two fellow activists of the Transform Now Plowshares group. The action was a nuclear disarmament protest referred to as "the biggest security breach in the history of the nation's atomic complex."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Montgomery (peace activist)</span> American non-violent anti-nuclear activist, educator, and nun (born 1926)

Sister Anne Montgomery RSCJ was an American non-violent activist, educator, nun, and poet who was part of the Plowshares movement. Aside from teaching, she worked with the poor, and advocated for peace via the Catholic Worker Movement. She was a member of the original Plowshares Eight in the first Plowshares action in 1980. Anne Montgomery House in Washington, D.C., run by the Society of the Sacred Heart, is named for her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kings Bay Plowshares</span>

The Kings Bay Plowshares are a group of seven Catholic peace activists who broke into the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base and carried out a symbolic act of protest against nuclear weapons. The name of the action and the wider anti-nuclear Plowshares movement comes from the prophet Isaiah’s command to "beat swords into plowshares."

Stephen Michael Kelly is an American Jesuit priest and peace activist. He spent six years in prison for hammering on D-5 Trident missiles and other Plowshares movement actions. He has spent at least a decade behind bars, with six of those years in solitary confinement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Hennessy</span> American peace activist

Martha Hennessy is an American Catholic peace activist and member of the Catholic Worker Movement co-founded by her grandmother, Dorothy Day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frida Berrigan</span> American peace activist and author.

Frida Berrigan is an American peace activist and author. She published the 2015 book, It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood, about her life in a family of prominent activists and her own philosophies of parenting. Raised in the Plowshares movement, she has been featured in documentaries and studies of the movement, including award-winning director Susan Hagedorn's 2021 The Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous. Frida Berrigan has documented and interpreted the movement's history and meaning from her first-hand perspective for a global audience.

Susan Crane is a peace activist, a member of the California Catholic Worker movement and a participant in the Plowshares movement. After decades of civil disobedience related to campaigns against nuclear war, she was sentenced to jail time in Germany in 2024.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "In Sisterhood Project | Molly Rush". Archived from the original on 2017-10-09. Retrieved 2017-10-08.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Norman, Liane Ellison (2016). Hammer of Justice: Molly Rush and the plowshares eight. WIPF & STOCK Publishers. ISBN   978-1532607646. OCLC   959034499.
  3. ↑ Brownmiller, Susan. (1999). In our time : memoir of a revolution. New York: Dial Press. ISBN   0385314868. OCLC   41885669.
  4. 1 2 Faulk, Erin (2011-11-28). "PatchPeople: Activist Molly Rush Wins Governor's Award". Dormont Patch. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  5. ↑ Friswold, Paul (2016). "Molly's Hammer is a Triumph at the Rep". Riverfront News. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  6. ↑ "Pittsburgh's Molly Rush is honored on anniversary of her nuclear warfare protest". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. September 10, 2016. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  7. ↑ Laffin, Arthur; Sargent, Carole, eds. (15 September 2024). ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance. Washington, DC: New Academia/SCARITH. ISBN   979-8-9900542-4-0.
  8. ↑ de Antonio, Emile (1983), In the King of Prussia , retrieved 2019-11-10
  9. ↑ "The Pursuit of Happiness".
  10. ↑ "Electronic Arts Intermix: The Trial of the AVCO Plowshares, John Reilly and Julie Gustafson".
  11. ↑ "The Trial of the Avco Plowshares".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.