Matthei, Chuck

In the early 1980s Chuck Matthei, in collaboration with Gail Daneker and Cheryl Fox, conducted approximately 40 taped interviews with the founders of the revolutionary pacifist and tax resistance group, Peacemakers. The interviewees included: Ernest and Marion Bromley, Maurice McCraken, and Wally and Juanita Nelson. Matthei was a pacifist and activist and from 1980-90 was the Executive Director of the land trust/community loan organization Institute for Community Economics (ICE), then based in Greenfield, MA and now located in Springfield, MA. Matthei then went on to found Equity Trust in 1991, which focused on alternative models of land tenure and economic development across the U.S., Central America and Kenya.

The interviews discuss the founding and development of Peacemakers, a decentralized, self-described “revolutionary pacifist” organization which believed in economic and social community uplift through resource sharing and cooperation as a way to dismantle capitalistic lifestyles. They spread the idea of peacemaking and developed non-violent methods of opposing war through various forms of non-cooperation and to advocate unilateral disarmament and economic democracy. The group manifested this through tax resistance, refusing to serve in the armed forces, refusing to make or transport weapons of war, and refusing to pay taxes for war purposes.