In 1968, Susan Crane arrived in New York City, having just returned from Ethiopia, where she had been a member of the peace corps. She was in her twenties, and it would have been an appropriate time for her to return to further study in the university. But the peace corps experience had made Susan keenly aware of the extreme division between rich and poor, and the Vietnam war was on everyone's mind. As protests against the war intensified, she joined a commune of students who had recently been active in the occupation of Columbia University.
There she joined in the study of social rebellions ("revolutionary moments") and became familiar with terms like "commodity society" and "critical social theory." The Vietnam war was seen not as an aberration but as a logical consequence of a society where "all you can see are things and their price." To Susan and her fellow communards, the university was an integral part of the war machine, and as the bombs rained down, they looked for ways to "bring the war home to the campus." For Susan and her friends, that meant to find nonviolent ways to shut down the university, if possible. The intention was at least to bring about a serious discussion of society and the role of the university in the war.
In the spring of 1969, she helped disrupt classes at Columbia and Harvard universities.
She liked living and working with a group of dedicated activists. They shared money, lived simply, and spent most of their time thinking about how to change themselves and the world, and then finding ways to put their thought into practice. There were many kinds of activities, including long-term work to provide food, housing, and basic skills to the underprivileged in New York. All this activity prefigured the life she would lead thirty years later.
The quiet years. When the war ended in the mid 70s, Susan and her community moved to the West Coast. Twenty years passed during which she married the author of this article and had two children (later we lived separately and coparented). While the children were young Susan maintained her opposition to war as a tax resistor. At the same time she made positive contributions to the local community. Among many other accomplishments, she started a day-care and school and helped found the local free dining room (aptly called "Plowshares"). She also returned to academia to get a teaching credential, and taught at the county court school in Ukiah.
As the children reached adulthood, Susan became more intensely involved in peace activism (see "Susans's social work in the 90s").
Susan searched for a deep siritual commitment to social change and commuunity. She found all that at Jonah house, the Catholic anti-war community in Baltimore, where she now lives. Jonah house is also the home of Philip Berrigan. Some of us who are old enough will never forget Phillip and his brother, Daniel. They are genuine heroes of the anti-war movement and they spent many years in jail for their actions, starting with the burning of draft records at an induction center in 1968. An incredibly brave act.
Susan and the Berrigans do not want to be thought of as heroes or extraordinary people. They consider themselves to be ordinary and they would like to be described in those terms.
This is the way I think of it: we must recognize that the extraordinary dwells in the ordinary person, you and me. And furthermore, that extraordinary goodness of ordinary people can be realized on this earth.
If that's what the coming of Christ means, then SO BE IT, and the sooner the better.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1999
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited