|
Your American History Reference Guide!
|
|
American History Search American History Browse |
|
Ammon HennacyAmmon Hennacy (July 24 1893 - January 14 1970) was a pacifist Christian anarchist, social activist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement and known for establishing the "Joe Hill House of Hospitality" in Salt Lake City, Utah and never paying taxes.
BiographyHennacy was born in Negley, Ohio to Quaker parents and grew up as a Baptist. On hearing Billy Sunday preach in 1909 he became an atheist and shortly afterwars became a socialist. He studied for a year at three different instutions, Hiram College in Ohio in 1913, University of Wisconsin in 1914, and Ohio State University 1915. During this time Hennacy was a card carrying communist and in his words "took military drills in order to learn how to kill capitalists" [1]. Upon the outbreak of the First World War Hennacy was imprisoned for two years in Atlanta, Georgia for resisting conscription. While in prison Hennacy inspired by the Bible, the only book he was allowed to read made a radical departure from his earlier beliefs and became a pacifist Christian anarchist, he also led a hunger strike and was punished with an eight month spell in solitary confinement. In 1919 Hennacy married his first wife under common law; two years later they hiked around the United States passing through 48 different states. Hennacy then settled down in 1925, buying a farm and raising his two children. In 1931 he began his social work in Milwaukee and organised one of the first social workers unions. During this time he refused to pay taxes, refused to use violence even when threatened during his work and refused to sign up for the draft during the Second World War. Between 1942 and 1953 Hennacy worked as a migrant farm labourer in the south west of the United States. In 1952 he was baptised as a Roman Catholic by a anarchist priest with Dorothy Day as his Godmother. Ammon Hennacy moved to New York in 1953 and became the associate editor of the Catholic Worker. Hennacy's life in New York was noticeable for his picketing, he started annual air raid drill protests and picketed against the Atomic Energy Commissions war preparations in Las Vegas, Cape Kennedy, Washington, D.C. and Omaha. In 1958 Hennacy fasted for 40 days in protest of nuclear weapons testing. During 1961 Hennacy moved to Utah and organised the Joe Hill House of Hospitality in Salt Lake City. While in Utah Hennacy fasted and picketed in protest of the death penalty and the use of taxes in war. In 1965 Hennacy married Joan Thomas and in the same year left the Roman Catholic Church though he remained a Catholic. He wrote of the reasons for leaving and of his thoughts on Catholicism [2], this essay and others have been published under the title The Book of Ammon. In 1968 Hennacy had to close the "Joe Hill House of Hospitality" and turned his attention to further protest and writing; he published a book titled The One-Man Revolution in 1970 Ammon Hennacy died from a heart attack on January 14, 1970. Political beliefsAmmon Hennacy was foremost a pacifist, an anarchist and a Christian, though he was often extremely critical of the what he described as the "institutional church" [3]. He did not drink or smoke and was a vegetarian. Much of his activism was anti-war, anti nuclear proliferation and against the death penalty. Hennacy never paid any taxes in his life, ostensibly because of their use in paying for the military and war. He lived his life in voluntary poverty and believed in personal one-man revolution against sin and authority. He also refused to accept the legitimacy of the judiciary. Bibliography
External Links
|
||||
The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the
GNU Free Documentation License. How to see transparent copy |
|
Search |
Browse |
Contact |
Legal info
|