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World War II Resisters: Creating Communities of Resistance in Prison
Author(s) -
Rhoton Nicole
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
peace and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1468-0130
pISSN - 0149-0508
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0130.2010.00689.x
Subject(s) - prison , law , conscientious objector , politics , political science , champion , resistance (ecology) , world war ii , duty , sociology , imprisonment , spanish civil war , ecology , biology
World War II war resisters—those men who actively refused to register for the draft because it violated their principles, whether political, moral, religious, or otherwise—aggressively challenged the limits of freedom in American society by rejecting military service because they believed that killing, under any pretense, was always wrong. As a maximum protest against war, resisters refused conscription, thus violating the draft law, which resulted in their imprisonment. Paradoxically, resisters found the prison to be a site of virtue as they rejected mandatory enlistment as a citizen’s duty. Resisters turned the prison into a forum for the development of political thought and action regarding radical pacifism and nonviolence. Through direct action, prisoners realized the potential of nonviolent resistance, a method and technique they cultivated before the war, mastered in prison, and carried with them after the war to champion civil rights, racial equality, and peace in subsequent conflicts.