Frances Crowe

Frances Crowe (born March 15, 1919) is an American peace activist and pacifist from the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.

Early life

Crowe was born in Carthage, Missouri. She 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 married Thomas Crowe in 1945 and has three children.

Career and activism

Crowe worked for Bell Labs 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 (running the local office from the basement of her Northampton, Massachusetts home for several decades), 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.[2] 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.[3] She is also one of the core members of the Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq and the newly formed Alliance for Peace and Justice, which is a Western MA coalition consisting of individuals and organizations. The Alliance was formed in December 2009 in response to President Obama's call to increase the troops in Afghanistan and she was explicit in helping the Alliance pass the "Bring Our War $$ Home" resolution in Northampton, MA and Amherst, MA.

Crowe has been active in the movement against nuclear power and for safe energy in New England since the 1970s^[1] and was one of 1414 people arrested at the occupation of the Seabrook nuclear power plant construction site in April, 1977. She has been arrested for peace and justice numerous times. Three recent arrests: In September 2009, Crowe and three other women were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.^[2] She was also arrested in Washington DC at the Veterans for Peace demonstration on December 16, 2010 (at 91 yrs of age) along with 6 other women from Western MA. She was arrested on January 15, 2014 (94 years old) again at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant ^[3] Her most recent arrest occurred on June 24, 2017 at the age of 98. She protesting the building of the Kinder-morgan pipeline through a Massachusetts forest. ^[4]

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.^[5] An archive of her papers is kept at the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.[4]

Ms. Crowe is a recipient of the Joe A. Callaway award in December 2009. In her acceptance speech, Ms. Crowe said that "core awareness lies at the bottom not the top."

References

^ Michael Kenney. Tracking the protest movements that had roots in New England The Boston Globe, December 30, 2009.
^ Eeesha Williams. Protesters Arrested at Vermont Yankee Valley Post, September 29, 2009.
^ Brattleboro Police Log
^ [1]
^ The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Recipients List Archived February 14, 2009, at the Wayback Machine

External links

A protester for the ages
Frances Crowe page
Frances Crowe Papers at Sophia Smith Collection, 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

[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] Brattleboro Police Log

[4] [1]

[5] The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Recipients List Archived February 14, 2009, at the Wayback Machine

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v t e Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
General	Anti-nuclear groups in the US California movement Great Peace March Nuclear history of the United States Nuclear power in the US Canceled nuclear reactors in the US Nuclear weapons and the US Protests in the US Anti-nuclear advocates in the US
Organizations and groups	Abalone Alliance Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility Clamshell Alliance Committee for Nuclear Responsibility Corporate Accountability International Critical Mass Energy Project Friends of the Earth Greenpeace USA Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Mothers for Peace Musicians United for Safe Energy Nevada Desert Experience Nuclear Control Institute Nuclear Information and Resource Service Physicians for Social Responsibility Plowshares movement Ploughshares Fund Public Citizen Shad Alliance Sierra Club Three Mile Island Alert Women Strike for Peace Kings Bay Plowshares
People	Daniel Berrigan William J. Bichsel Bruce G. Blair Larry Bogart Helen Caldicott Barry Commoner Norman Cousins Frances Crowe Carrie Barefoot Dickerson Paul M. Doty Bernard T. Feld Randall Forsberg John Gofman Paul Gunter John Hall Jackie Hudson Sam Lovejoy Amory Lovins Bernard Lown Arjun Makhijani Gregory Minor Hermann Joseph Muller Ralph Nader Graham Nash Linus Pauling Eugene Rabinowitch Phil Radford Bonnie Raitt Carl Sagan Martin Sheen Karen Silkwood Thomas Louis Vitale Harvey Wasserman Victor Weisskopf
Main protest sites	Black Fox Bodega Bay Diablo Canyon Indian Point Lawrence Livermore Montague Naval Base Kitsap Nevada Test Site Rancho Seco Rocky Flats San Onofre Seabrook Shoreham Three Mile Island Trojan Vermont Yankee White House Peace Vigil Y-12 Weapons Plant Yankee Rowe
Books	Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free Conservation Fallout: Nuclear Protest at Diablo Canyon Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958–1978 The Cult of the Atom The Doomsday Machine (book) Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy Killing Our Own Licensed to Kill? The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Shoreham Power Plant Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West Nuclear Implosions: The Rise and Fall of the Washington Public Power Supply System Nuclear Politics in America We Almost Lost Detroit
Films	Atomic Ed and the Black Hole The China Syndrome Countdown to Zero Dark Circle Nuclear Tipping Point Silkwood