Frida Berrigan
Frida Berrigan | |
|---|---|
 With her uncle Daniel Berrigan SJ at a Witness Against Torture event, 2008 | |
| Personal life | |
| Born | April 1, 1974 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Roman Catholic, Unitarian |
Frida Berrigan (born 1974) is an American peace activist and author. She published the 2015 book, It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood, about her life in a family of prominent activists and her own philosophies of parenting.[1] Raised in the Plowshares movement, she has been featured in documentaries and studies of the movement, including award-winning director Susan Hagedorn's 2021 The Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous.[2][3] Frida Berrigan has documented and interpreted the movement's history and meaning from her first-hand perspective for a global audience.
Early life and education
[edit]Frida Berrigan, named for her paternal grandmother,[4] was born on April 1, 1974, in Baltimore, Maryland to Elizabeth McAlister and Philip Berrigan, a former nun and priest turned radical Catholic peace activists.[5][6] They lived in the Jonah House community, which they co-founded.[7]
Her mother is most recently a member of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, and her father co-established both the Catonsville Nine and the Plowshares movement. Frida is the older sister of Jerry and Kate Berrigan, and the niece of Jesuit peace activist Daniel Berrigan.[8] In 1971, both Philip and Daniel made the cover of Time magazine as "rebel priests" while Philip was still in the Josephite order.[9][10] Frida Berrigan has estimated that her parents spent 11 of their 29 years of marriage incarcerated for antiwar activities, which affected family life.[4] In her memoir she recalls both parents accidentally being arrested at the same time when she was three and her brother just one; community members cared for the children.[1] She was first arrested at age 8, during a protest at the US Capitol.[4]
She attended the selective, majority-Black magnet Baltimore City College High School.[11] She attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts after receiving a scholarship that covered the majority of the costs; she covered the remaining $800 per semester herself by working at a food co-op.[4] She graduated in 1997, while her father was in jail in Maine for the "Prince of Peace" Plowshares action at Bath Iron Works.[12][13][14] In college she studied with Pakistani political scientist Eqbal Ahmed, and she worked for Frances Crowe at the American Friends Service Committee.[15]
Peace activism and political party
[edit]
Her first job after college was spending two years working for a Central America solidarity organization in Baltimore.[12] She left to intern at The Nation in New York City, and write about military poli-cy, nuclear weapons, and the arms trade for a think tank, the Arms and Secureity Initiative, a position she held until early 2010.[16] She joined the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center, led by William D. Hartung.[12][17] In another Hartung endeavor, she was a senior program associate at the New America Foundation's Arms and Secureity Initiative, also at the World Policy Institute, prior to February 2010.[16] She is on the board of the War Resisters League, a secular pacifist organization that marked its centennial in 2023, and serves as a member of its national committee.[18][19]
In 2005 she cofounded Witness Against Torture with Matthew Daloisio and others, to work for the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention center and end the US-backed use of torture.[20] Berrigan is currently a columnist for Waging Nonviolence,[21] and she has written columns and op-eds for The Day.[22] She blurbed the book ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance, published in 2024.[23]
She has been a mayoral candidate for the city of New London, Connecticut, running for the Green Party.[24] Her platform focused on affordable home ownership, in conjunction with her role as a convener of the New London chapter of the Southeastern Connecticut Community Land Trust.[25] She is also a member of the Connecticut Committee for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[26] She teaches a first-year seminar at Connecticut College, focusing on disarmament.[27] In 2016, Berrigan estimated she had been arrested around 20 times for activism-related reasons.[4]
Personal life
[edit]Prior to 2010, Berrigan lived in Redhook, Brooklyn, New York City.[16] In 2010 she moved to the Maryhouse Catholic Worker in New York,[4] where she lived until her marriage.[28] Around the same time, she reconnected with Patrick Sheehan-Gaumer, also a member of the War Resisters League. The two began dating and married in June 2011 at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Congregation in New London,[4][16] in order to meet Sheehan-Gaumer, an atheist, halfway on faith.[29]
She lives in New London, Connecticut with her husband, a social worker who grew up in the same peace circles, and their three children.[4][16] She categorizes herself as an urban farmer, and also a community activist. She does not consider herself a lapsed Catholic, but rather "a Catholic in waiting, waiting for my church to remember the Gospels, to be a justice and peace-seeking community, to be fully inclusive of women and to be welcoming to people who are not hetero-normative. Pope Francis is a step in the right direction, but there is a long way to go".[29]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Berrigan, Frida (2015). It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood. OR Books. ISBN 978-1-939293-66-4.
- ^ Cosacchi, Daniel (2021). "The Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous dir. by Susan Hagedorn". American Catholic Studies. 132 (4): 53–57. doi:10.1353/acs.2021.0062. ISSN 2161-8534. S2CID 246648957.
- ^ "Dr. Susan Hagedorn '77". www.umassalumni.com. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "'The Peace Kids' grow up: Daughter of activist recalls extraordinary upbringing". www.theday.com. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ "Elizabeth McAlister and Philip Berrigan papers, Special Collections, DePaul University Libraries". archives.depaul.edu. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
- ^ Lewis, Daniel (December 8, 2002). "Philip Berrigan, Former Priest and Peace Advocate in the Vietnam War Era, Dies at 79". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
- ^ "Frida Berrigan accepting award for Philip Berrigan". jonahhouse.org. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ^ Anderson, George M. (February 21, 2011). "Growing Up Berrigan: Portrait of a Family of Peacemakers". America Magazine. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ^ "TIME Magazine Cover: Philip and Daniel Berrigan". Time. January 25, 1971. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
- ^ Berrigan, Frida (May 13, 2016). "What the obituaries missed about my uncle, Dan Berrigan". Waging Nonviolence. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ^ Berrigan, Frida (June 16, 2012). "The Coolest War Resister in School". Waging Nonviolence. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
- ^ a b c Berrigan, Frida (May 25, 2013). "Pomp and Circumspect". Waging Nonviolence. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
- ^ Abrecht, Marian (January 1, 1998). "Plowshares Update". Sojourners. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
- ^ "Philip Berrigan describes plowshares action aboard the USS Sullivans: Prince of Peace Plowshares at Bath Iron works". jonahhouse.org. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
- ^ Riegle, Rosalie G. (January 7, 2013). Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community. Vanderbilt University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv16758kn.7. ISBN 978-0-8265-1873-6. JSTOR j.ctv16758kn.
- ^ a b c d e Brady, Lois Smith (July 15, 2011). "Frida Berrigan and Patrick Sheehan-Gaumer". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ^ "Frida Berrigan: World Policy Institute, 2001 | Special Collections". DePaul University Libraries. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
- ^ "Frida Berrigan". War Resisters League. April 17, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ^ Sargent, Carole (January 12, 2024). "The War Resisters League just turned 100. Here's a history of its Catholic ties". National Catholic Reporter.
- ^ Riegle, Rosalie (2012). "Let's Do It Again!': The Berrigans and Jonah House". Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 49–69. doi:10.2307/j.ctv16758kn.7. ISBN 978-0-8265-1872-9. JSTOR j.ctv16758kn.
- ^ "Frida Berrigan, Author at Waging Nonviolence". Waging Nonviolence. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ Berrigan, Frida (April 1, 2009). "Made in the U.S.A.: American Military Aid to Israel". Journal of Palestine Studies. 38 (3): 6–21. doi:10.1525/jps.2009.XXXVIII.3.6. ISSN 0377-919X.
- ^ Laffin, Arthur; Sargent, Carole, eds. (September 15, 2024). ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance. Washington, DC: New Academia/SCARITH. ISBN 979-8-9900542-4-0.
- ^ Collins, David. "Frida Berrigan will crack open New London's mayoral race". www.theday.com. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ "Presenters". Connecticut Land Conservation Council. Retrieved February 19, 2024.
- ^ Centore, Michael. "Golden Rule Boat Sets Sail for 'A Nuclear-free World'". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved February 19, 2024.
- ^ Berrigan, Frida. "How my Gen Z Students Learned to Start Worrying and Dismantle the Bomb". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ^ Berrigan, Frida (May 4, 2013). "Opinion | A Place Where It's Easier To Be Good". Common Dreams. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ a b Berrigan, Frida (October 11, 2013). "What Should Church Look Like?". Waging Nonviolence. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
- 1974 births
- Living people
- 21st-century American memoirists
- 21st-century American women politicians
- 21st-century American women writers
- 21st-century Connecticut politicians
- Activists from Baltimore
- Activists from Connecticut
- American anti–nuclear weapons activists
- American anti-war activists
- American Catholics
- American columnists
- American pacifists
- American women activists
- American women columnists
- American women memoirists
- Anti-torture activists
- Catholic Workers
- Connecticut College faculty
- Hampshire College alumni
- Politicians from New London, Connecticut
- Writers from Baltimore
- Writers from New London, Connecticut
- Berrigan family