As soon as he landed in prison during WWII, he started a strike to desegregate the prison dining hall. He opposed war because war is wrong, not because he thought Hitler was swell.
The reality is, the civil rights movement was built on those WWII riff-raff jailbird pacifists.
After the war, Bayard Rustin (he did 28 months for opposing war in WWII) organized the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947, the first of the freedom rides, to desegregate interstate busing. The list of riders includes a good number of WWII pacifists. Not much happened, a few got arrested.
Jim Peck was a crewmember of The Golden Rule in 1958 (yes 13 years before Greenpeace, and it was the inspiration for Greenpeace) that tried to sail into a nuclear test site (when they were still testing above ground). The ship was captained by Albert Bigelow, who had served in WWII but then turned against war.In early May of 1961, The Freedom Rides happened. James l. Farmer organized it that time, another CO from WWII. There was nothing illegal that time, they were testing rulings that had disallowed desegregation on interstate busing. Albert Bigelow and John Lewis ere attacked, Jim Peck was nearly beaten to death, one bus was burned. The civil rights hierarchy didn't like the Freedom Ride, the people in the south didn't like them, the US presidency didn't like them. But just like Rosa Parks showing others to act by her deed, Diane Nash (who had been part of the lunch counter sit ins the year before) knew it was important and made sure the Freedom Rides continued. And with hundreds of jailbirds that summer, desegregated busing in the US stopped.
They had power that most of us can't grasp. To stand up to bullies, and segregation and all that kept it in place was at its core bullies, to stand up to their violence.
Both sets of freedom rides counted on those WWII pacifists as participants or organizers (and sometimes both, since pacifist George Houser, I think he did time in WWII despite being a theology student (and thus exempt) rode in 1947, then helped to organize in 1961).
Bayard Rustin was a major reason for the non-violence of the civil rights movement. It wasn't some tactic, it was a deep seated realization that violence is wrong. Non-violence came roaring out of the CO camps and the prisons of WWII to change the world.
In 1982 I was I was in the War Resisters Office buying some books, and someone served me who seemed familiar and was older. I assumed he was one of those WWII pacifists, though I'm no longer sure which one. They have aged too, most have passed away already, without a lot of fuss from mainstream press. Though, there was George Houser at about 91 on Oprah on May 4th/ Sadly nobody really said anything about him, or to him, and not a word was said about the WWII pacifists that were key players in the beginning.
