Obituary of Marjorie Swann Edwin

Marjorie Swann, Lifelong Non-Violent Activist Marjorie Swann, disarmament and civil rights activist, died March 14 surrounded by family at her home in Santa Cruz. She was 93 years old. Marjorie Swann was an early leader of nonviolent direct action campaigns against nuclear weapons at the Polaris nuclear submarine base in Groton, Connecticut. In 1958, she was arrested for trespassing as part of a civil disobedience action at an Omaha, Nebraska nuclear missile site, was sentenced and served 6 months in federal prison. She fasted in 1972 for 22 months to protest the War in Vietnam along with Dick Gregory. Marjorie and her husband Robert Swann founded the New England Committee for Nonviolent Action in 1960. For 12 years, they dramatically popularized nonviolent resistance to the U.S. war in Vietnam. Based on a farm in Voluntown, CT, they traveled throughout New England organizing vigils, walks, fasts, caravans, draft and military counseling, war tax resistance, civil rights, gay rights, military base conversion projects, developing economic alternatives, and preparations for large-scale anti-war demonstrations in Washington, DC. The Swann's farm was attacked by right-wing paramilitary Minutemen with fire in 1966 and guns in 1968. Despite the attacks, Swann and her companions held fast to their commitment to nonviolence. After these attacks, surrounding neighbors befriended them. A charter member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Marjorie Swann was active with the NAACP, War Resisters League, American Friends (Quakers) Service Committee, the National Committee for Conscientious Objectors and the Cambridge, MA Friends Meeting. She served as the first woman Executive Director of the Cambridge, MA office of the American Friends Service Committee from 1977-1980. Swann was the mother of four children. She wrote, "As a woman, I certainly experience a kind of rage and frustration similar to that which Third World people do, and as a woman working on women's liberation issues, I advocate and practice assertive and dynamic nonviolence to deal with the injustices I feel as a woman." She also wrote, "Most of us do not realize, or have not accepted, the reality that disarmament and peace and the development of a 'nonviolent world' call for some startling changes in economic, social and political structures." Swann lived in Santa Cruz during her last years, attending Santa Cruz Friends Meeting. The Resource Center tor Nonviolence hosted a 90th birthday celebration for Marjorie Swann in 2012, when friends and relatives from around the United States shared stories about the rich life of the groundbreaking activist. A memorial Meeting for Worship will be hosted by the Santa Cruz Friends Meeting Saturday, August 16, 2014 10:30 am - 4:00 pm, at the Friends Meeting House, 225 Rooney Street, Santa Cruz. Swann leaves three daughters: Judith Swann (CA), Carol Swann (CA), a stepdaughter, Rose Edwin (CA), a son Scott Swann (CA) and one grandson Skyler Swann.