The Grace Paley Legacy

Grace Paley was a wonderful writer and troublemaker. --Donald Barthelme

Many people have wondered how to best remember and celebrate this amazing woman. This blog will record non-violent actions around the world to further her vision of resistance to the empires of war and exploitation. We want to record instances of creative non-violent actions-- powerful gestures in the struggle for peace and justice.

This is from her book Just As I Thought:
The first action I took that could be described in formal terms as civil disobedience was during the Armed Forces Day Parade in the sixties. Somebody said, "You want to do that with us?" And I said, "Oh, sure." So we sat down in front of the parade, sat down and threw flowers at the tanks, etc. And the good thing about that is that I got six days in jail. I've never spent more than that at any one time. I learned a lot. I learned that it was interesting. I mean, when you're in jail, it's not, as if you're no place. You're in another place. You're SOMEPLACE. It is not as if you're not among people. You're among women and they're interesting. Not frightening. Whoever they are, the people, the prisoners, those women can educate you. And the whole experience is one that, well, you are suddenly in an American colony. You can think of that vast prison population that way. You have to go into it from time to time. This is how the colonized live. Prison is not a metaphor.

For information about the Prison Industrial Complex go to Critical Resistance