Cassin was born in southern France and survived

World War I, severely wounded but alive.

He was a professor of law for many years and fled

To London with de Gaulle when Hitler led

His troops to overrun their land. His positions

Included work with the League of Nations and war veterans,

Whom he felt especially qualified to help bring peace

Between adversaries. He was honored with the Prize

For drafting the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.

His tireless work with Eleanor Roosevelt brought sufficient ‘ayes’

To the drafts and additional covenants later signed.

But how could Peace come out of mere agreement with words?

“Here is your protection against violence;  here is your sword,

The belief in our life, The worth of mankind.”

The Children’s Fund began after WWII as UNICEF

At the insistence of President Hoover, among others.

Many demanded the world respond to address

The desperate needs of post-war children and mothers:

Six million in Europe alone were thus fed

One meal every day through the winter of ’47.

The ‘begging bowl’ grew, by its first president, Pate, who led.

Called UNICEF’s slumbering conscience, he sparked

A “road to peace” ‘where politicians groped in the dark.’

Then 121 governments contributed funds that would

Feed, nurse, teach, reduce infant mortality in childhood,

To help without any ulterior motive, seeing all as good.

The Children’s Fund offered the young care, health and education,

Arguable prerequisites for any true “brotherhood of men.”

King accepted the prize in the name of “those devotees

Of nonviolence” climbing the “ramparts of racial injustice.”

He’d come to believe in using Gandhi’s non-violent

Resistance. So they walked and they marched – and they sat.

They were shot, bombed, arrested, beaten, jailed and spat at,

And the eyes of the nation began to have to see

The ugly discrimination still practiced so boldly in the South.

The FBI followed him, tried to blackmail him into

Quitting the movement. Instead, it expanded and went

From a black movement to a broader insistence

That “human worth” over poverty and war must triumph.

“Now is the time,” he said and was right to demand

A swift ending to the war in Vietnam,

The war from which 58,000 American men

Never came home again.

All know of King’s work for U.S. racial equality,

His dream, five score years after Lincoln stated, slaves

“Shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

King experienced the reality, and gave

Of his boundless spirit and energy to save

The dream of real freedom for blacks in America.

They were forced to give way to whites – sit in the back of the bus,

And in other ways not share the ‘freedoms’ reserved for the rest.

When Rosa Parks did not obey and sat in the front,

King was there and agreed to lead others to confront

These humiliating laws. He’d read Thoreau, and, from him,

“We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system.”

He believed opposing poverty and injustice was a Christian duty.

And began to worry he’d be killed before he turned forty.

These two international organizations had long worked in tandem.

The Committee, a Swiss organization, stated the sole reason

Its members are admitted into “the territory of belligerents”?

Their impartiality is complete and inspires confidence.

“They know . . . in a world where selfish and ideological interests

 Are in conflict,” the Red Cross alone, “without any thought of self-interest”

Will step in to relieve suffering without prejudice of any kind,

Their work guided by the Geneva Convention, as expanded,

From war’s prisoners to all displaced and distressed populations.

With medical care and material goods, they arrive,

With the power of their national chapters, to keep alive

The war-torn, the persecuted, the refugees trying to survive.

At this time, they had 170 million members supporting world relief

Consistent with their motto, “By Humanity for Peace.”

Pauling’s anti-war activity spanned the period

When the U.S. and Russia were being asked to confront

The exceptional danger of nuclear weapons and myriad

Repercussions of nuclear testing. He worked to shunt

Nuclear proliferation – with treaties and entreaties.

He joined Einstein after the war and crafted a treaty

To ban that testing, which he took to Russia and the U.S.

A similar one passed. He continued – on Vietnam, mirroring the anxiety

Of the nation. He renounced all use of war-like force.

He said “no human being should be sacrificed to a project . . .

Of perfecting nuclear weapons that could kill hundreds

Of millions of human beings, could devastate

This beautiful world in which we live.”

He called the “military-industrial complex” and “war contractors,”

With their billions in excess profits, War’s only backers.

Linus Pauling, Professor Extraordinaire, lived

“On the frontiers of science,” earning the Nobel Prize

In Chemistry (in ’54) and Peace. His research articles

Gave structure to the bonds that hold atomic particles

Together. But the bomb dropped on Hiroshima appalled

Him and he turned to devote himself to the clarion call

Of stopping nuclear arms and testing. He began

A petition of scientists around the world who demanded

An end to nuclear testing, disarmament and a ban.

He published his opinions in a book, No More War.

These actions resulted in his investigation:  was he a Communist?

He told Congress he was not – in ’55 and again,

In 1960. By then he had participated in the organization

Of a world congress against nuclear arms proliferation.

Dag Hammarskjold was the second General Secretary of the U.N.

From ‘53 to 1961 when he died in a crashed plane.

He was Swedish aristocracy, in the Congo, once again,

To further details for the freedom of Congo from Belgium,

Famous for its decades of terror, slave camps and hate.

His history of successful efforts to negotiate

Peace and transition were well known by all U.N. members.

His work in the Middle East and Suez helped disencumber

Border and ownership disputes between Israel and Egypt:

It was first there that U.N. peacekeeping forces were used

To monitor sensitive border areas, preventing abuse.

In the Congo, his talents came forth first as “quiet diplomacy.”

He said, “Life only demands from you the strength that you possess.

Only one feat is possible:  not to run away.”

Lutuli’s intelligence, grace, strength and deep kinship

With others awoke a watching world, growing distressed

As South Africa’s leadership maintained their vice-like grip

On all Black expressions of free speech, assembly and press.

He wrote, “the past thirty years have seen the greatest number

Of laws restricting our rights . . . our only asset cattle.”

“I have joined my people in the new spirit that moves them . . .

That revolts in a determined and non-violent manner.”

In Oslo, he called it a “paradox” to win

Such a prestigious award, as he was “a citizen

Of a country where the brotherhood of man

Is an illegal doctrine,” militarily controlled and banned.

He lived the rest of his life subject to their bans.

He never lived the life of a free man.

Lutuli lived through ever-increasing repression

Of South African blacks, white control and segregation.

Blacks were forced to lose their land and citizenship rights,

And membership in black groups was banned: next they might

Support social or political rights for non-Whites…

He was a kind, college teacher, then speaker, and then ran

The African National Congress, where he stood solidly

For equality. He was jailed, surveilled and his travel banned.

In their liberation struggle, blacks tried protesting peacefully.

So the police massacred sixty-nine indiscriminately,

Jailing 18,000 (for non-crimes). It was time

For an end to apartheid in South Africa. He

Tore up his Pass card, the law controlling parts “Whites only,”

And he called for U.N. sanctions against their crimes.