Washington Peace Center

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The Washington Peace Center is a 44-year-old progressive not-for-profit (501c3) organization with a nine-member board of directors, which meets monthly. Currently it has one hired staff person, a coordinator, who organizes educational events on the issues of nonviolence, anti-militarism concerns, anti-racism, peace and social justice.

Originally founded as an early anti-nuclear arms coalition by a small group of Quakers in 1963, the center soon became deeply involved in the anti-Vietnam movement in the Washington, D.C. area. In more recent years, it has become involved with opposing the war and occupation of Iraq, countering military recruiters and attempting to institute a peace curriculum in area public schools.

The Washington Peace Center also publishes two or three times a year the "Peace Letter."^[1] It distributes the free publication to libraries, coffee shops and other public places throughout the District of Columbia. The peace center also mails the publication to its more than 800 members throughout the greater Washington metropolitan area.

According to the organization's Web site, "the Center's primary goal has been to strategically link local organizing for economic and social justice to national and international struggles toward establishing structures and relationships that are nonviolent, non-hierarchical, humane and just."^[2]

The Washington Peace Center's previous two coordinators were Paul Magno, now a staff person at Rights Action, and Pete Perry, a freelance writer and graduate student in the local area. Other coordinators in earlier years have included Lisa Fithian (now with UFPJ), Jennifer Carr, John Judge, Maria Ramos and Brian Anders. Current co-coordinator, Jay Marx, has been active in DAWN and the D.C. Statehood/Green Party. Co-coordinator Sonia Silbert has been active in Code Pink.