Ralph Johnson Bunche was born in Detroit, black.

His family moved to L.A., while racial attacks

Were common. His talents developed despite his origin.

Then he graduated from UCLA, valedictorian.

He taught politics and took a Ph.D. in colonialism.

At first, he thought racism would end through cooperation,

Realizing later that blacks must fight for the Constitution.

He went to work at the U.N. and from this station,

He rose to the top in complex projects he negotiated.

He was assigned to bring Arabs to the table to meet Jews, not elated.

He rejected extremist Jews’ territorial abuses,

And helped Egypt and Israel broker a lasting truce.

He lived to walk with Martin Luther King and rejected

Hatred as a ‘Black Power’ movement imperative.

John Boyd Orr, born on a farm in Scotland,

Pursued medicine, medical research, and human nutrition.

His research on diet and policy awoke many in Britain

And the U.S., where he pressed for world food plan cooperation –

At a level designed to meet the world’s poor’s needs,

While the post-war food crisis was stripping lives due to greed.

His directorship of the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization

Created world “food policy,” saving millions from starvation.

He then worked to help stabilize world food price levels,

Working through market and national economies, dishevelled.

He believed we were destined to see a world government happen,

With world law to protect our interdependent nations’ garden.

He said, “We must conquer hunger and want . . . in the midst of plenty,”

“A fatal flaw” and “fundamental cause of war.” A curse on the world’s bounty.

Ghandi insisted on going to England to study –

Despite family and local pressures in India to stay.

As a barrister, he travelled to Africa to help to fight

For Indians laboring there, indentured, injustice

Engrained in their work lives.  He exercised there his rights

To equal treatment – on trains, in hotels – an awareness, ceaseless,

Developing in him, which carried him back to help heal his Indian nation:

Helping peasants forced to grow crops for too little to live,

Helping to boycott imperialism with non-cooperation,

Bringing leaders together completely unwilling to give

The ‘untouchables’ equal status, or women equality,

Independent lives free of oppression. Human dignity:

This is what he woke to, fasted to, spoke to and embraced.

Jailed 11 times, 6 years by Britain, to their eternal disgrace.

Venerable one, your nonviolent resistance and will with its own ‘Why’

Brought us the strength to see Peace in what it means to “do and die.”

No prize was awarded in 1948 . . .

But support for Mahatma Ghandi as winner was great.

Killed then for his determined history of nonviolent resistance,

He achieved remarkable feats in his political ascendance.

He became the century’s strongest symbol of non-violence

For the strength of his piety, leadership and benevolence.

His own ethical and moral attitude, satyagraha,

The “truth force,” did not reject the ‘rule of law,’

But if it were unreasonable or suppressive by far,

That law must be broken:  reject its hold, its claw!

Without effect, its merit destroyed by determination,

Authorities would relent and develop more fair legislation.

He used this approach to win India’s independence from Britain.

He believed in religious pluralism but was forced toward ‘partition.’

The Prize this year went not to Ghandi but the Quakers –

Delivered to the English and American Friends Service.

They rejected weapons and war as conscientious objectors,

Replacing aggression with service – “from the nameless to the nameless.”

The Quakers arose from resistance to codes of the Anglican Church.

They emigrated and grew, both in America and England, to become

A ‘Society’ whose actions in wartime blunted its reach:

They ran ambulances, kitchens, schools, and among them, no one

Was a slave, too ill, too weak, too oppressed not to aid:

They brought welfare, manned bomb shelters, schooled prisoners in WWII.

Into the fury of war they strode, purpose-bent and true

To their inner voice, to never raise a hand God made

Against another. They listened. They never ceased,

Despite their own oppression, to keep Peace by bringing Peace.

The Committee referred in their remarks to her statement,

“International unity is not in itself a solution.

Unless this . . . has a moral quality, accepts the discipline

Of moral standards and possesses the quality of humanity,

It will not be the unity we are interested in.”

They said, “She has taught us more:  that exhaustion is unknown,

And defeat only gives fresh courage” to those “fired by the sacred flame.”

Her acceptance was delivered in ’48. She said,

“This is a period of change,” the change that is read

In invention, technology, science and medical discovery,

The shift from human to atomic and machinery,

Dying colonialism and imperialism, “a plastic period,”

“As though anything could happen” . . . noting nationalism.

She welcomed liberty, democracy, reason and “growing humaneness.”

Emily Green Balch shared the Prize – unwelcome by some –

But not the limelight and congratulations heaped on Mott.

Her work with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

Secured her support through a successful campaign. She got

Nominated by universities across the U.S. and Europe.

She had studied sociology and social work for underprivileged,

Taught college, helped workers get their first minimum wage,

Preached peace and joined Jane Addams at the Hague to develop

A women’s plan for peace. She then travelled, studied, and met

With European leaders in efforts to secure,

By political persuasion, a greater commitment to disarmament.

She supported the Bolshevik Revolution and was labelled a traitor.

She continued, elderly, to reconcile the U.S. with the Soviets and China,

A pioneer and unsung diplomat, a Peace refiner.

John Mott grew up in Iowa and early found

His calling was to use his life to foster Christian

Values among the young, that all peoples were bound

To each other. He understood that the early fruition

Of fellowship that emphasized this brotherhood

Would help to eliminate racial divisions and strife.

He began at Cornell with the YMCA, which stood

For the Young Men’s Christian Association. Its life

Became his mission as he travelled internationally

Setting up new associations and preaching an open embrace

Of Christian values, across denominations, literally

Uniting hundreds of thousands of students, their place

As leaders of tomorrow already secured. His call?

“He who would be the greatest among you shall be the servant of all.”

Hull became Secretary of State under President Franklin

D. Roosevelt, and just as soon had the distinction

Of implementing his “good neighbor policy” with representatives

Of 21 American nations.  Three years later, he took the initiative

For the Inter-American Peace Conference, for a joint ideology:

Key aspects included the requirement to create peace within

One’s country, consult often with others and begin

Closer bonds through free trade, solve conflicts by mediation,

And, if acts of war broke out, remain neutral, reign in

Support, prohibit loans and the export of all arms.

These neutrality mandates, strict but vague in terms,

Were designed to reinforce and maintain a free-trade economy.

Hull felt peace was absent between nations waging ‘economic war,’

And worked and lived to assure the United Nations’ core.

Once again, the Red Cross had to participate

In a war full of horror, notorious waste and loss,

Whose level of needs none could anticipate,

Nor tally its length, nor guess and plot its course.

For prisoners of war, they did almost all things –

Reports to kin, returns, conditions, letters, food, lists,

All countries monitored. Thousands worked on this.

As to Hitler’s ‘final solution,’ ‘some knew’ in 1942,

But were overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do.

With neutral Switzerland the key used to legitimize

Their work, they felt they could not afford to ostracize

Any nation, despite the silent foul ‘Howl’

Of extermination, millions mourning while millions of others scowled.

(Fifty years later, with fresh eyes, they apologized.)