Frances Crowe | |
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| Born | Frances Hyde (1919-03-15)March 15, 1919 Carthage, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | August 27, 2019(2019-08-27) (aged 100) |
| Alma mater | Stephens College Syracuse University |
| Occupation(s) | Pacifist, peace activist |
| Spouse | [1] |
| Children | three |
Frances Crowe (néeHyde; March 15, 1919 – August 27, 2019)[2] was an Americanpeace activist andpacifist from thePioneer Valley ofWestern Massachusetts.
Frances Hyde was born inCarthage,Missouri on March 15, 1919.[1] Growing up, she witnessed a public hanging held outside on the courthouse lawn; hawkers sold tickets to the best views. This grounded a lifetime resistance to capital punishment.[3] She held degrees fromStephens College inColumbia,Missouri (1939) andSyracuse University (1941), and conducted graduate work atColumbia University andThe New School for Social Research. She married Thomas Crowe, a physician, in 1945 and had three children.
Crowe worked forBell Labs duringWorld War II. In 1945, following thebombing of civilian populations inDresden,Hiroshima, andNagasaki, she became apeace activist. Her participation in numerous protests led to arrests, trials, and imprisonment. She was active in theSociety of Friends,American Friends Service Committee (running the local office from the basement of herNorthampton, Massachusetts home for several decades), andWar Resisters League, and co-founded the Traprock Peace Center (based inDeerfield, Massachusetts) and the Committee to End Apartheid (based inSpringfield, Massachusetts). In the 1960s, she founded theNorthampton, Massachusetts chapter ofWomen's International League for Peace and Freedom, theSane Nuclear Policy Committee (nowPeace Action), and theValley Peace Center (based inAmherst, Massachusetts), and also participated in the activities ofWomen Against the War andAmnesty International.
In 1967, during theVietnam War, she worked as adraft counselor, providing counseling to over 2,000 people about applying forconscientious objector status by the war's end. She continued to be an advocate for conscientious objectors. Stating that she could not pay for killing, she became awar tax refuser since the beginning of theIraq War. She was also one of the core members of the Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq and the Alliance for Peace and Justice, which is a Western Massachusetts coalition consisting of individuals and organizations. The Alliance was formed in December 2009 in response to President Obama's call to increase the troops in Afghanistan and she was explicit in helping the Alliance pass the "Bring Our War $$ Home" resolution in Northampton, Massachusetts and Amherst, Massachusetts.
Crowe was active in themovement against nuclear power and forsafe energy inNew England since the 1970s[4] and was one of 1414 people arrested at theoccupation of the Seabrook nuclear power plant construction site in April, 1977. She was arrested numerous times. Three arrests: In September 2009, Crowe and three other women were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience at theVermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.[5] She was also arrested in Washington DC at the Veterans for Peace demonstration on December 16, 2010 (at 91 yrs of age) along with 6 other women from Western MA. She was arrested on January 15, 2014 (94 years old) again at theVermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant[6]Her latest arrest occurred on June 24, 2017 at the age of 98. She was protesting the building of the Kinder Morgan pipeline through a Massachusetts forest.[7]
Crowe became avegetarian in 1971 after reading Frances Moore Lappé'sDiet for a Small Planet.[3] She was aQuaker.[8]
For her lifelong commitment to the Peace Movement and her unrelenting opposition to war through war tax resistance and eco-pacifist lifestyle, she was awarded the Courage of Conscience award May 4, 2007, by thePeace Abbey inSherborn, Massachusetts.[9]
Crowe was a recipient of the Joe A. Callaway award in December 2009. In her acceptance speech, Crowe said that "core awareness lies at the bottom not the top."[10]
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