Hilary McQuie is a community activist with 26 years of experience in non-violent direct action organizing. She started doing anti-nuclear work in 1980 against US nuclear weapons proliferation policy and the nuclear power industry in campaigns at Seabrook, NH, Three Mile Island in PA, Washington DC, Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Facility, Nevada Test Site, and Diable Canyon. She worked extensively with groups opposing US military intervention in Central America, and in the South Africa divestment movement. In San Francisco, she helped found Prevention Point needle exchange, successfully advocating for legalization and public funding, while providing direct services. In Zimbabwe, she worked with urban squatters in community development and self-defense, and then did extensive participatory research on the agrarian land reform program. She has a Masters degree in urban political geography, with research done on police territoriality and its effects on public health.
In the last year, Hilary has focused on building the anti-globalization movement. She was a key organizer of the Direct Action Network (DAN), which organized the mass direct action to shut down the WTO in Seattle November 30, 1999. As a DAN organizer, she worked on the April 16, 2000 actions against the IMF & World Bank, and did trainings for the Democratic National Convention protests both in the Bay Area and LA. Hilary facilitates trainings to prepare activists for non-violent direct action, non-hierarchical organizing strategies, and consensus decision-making.
Lisa Fithian is a community and labor organizer with 33 years of nonviolent direct
action experience.
Lisa became active in the mid 70's serving as president of
the student government in high school and at Skidmore College. As a student
leader she served on numerous state and national student organizations.
In 1983, Lisa began working with Abbie Hoffman at Save the
River in Clayton NY on the St. Lawrence River.During that year Lisa was instrumental in winning a major battle
against winter navigation-a billion dollar Army Corp of Engineer project on the
St. Lawrence River Seaway.Abbie, them
made her aware of the growing US intervention in Central America.
During the 1980's, Lisa worked locally and
nationally with the Pledge of Resistance, an organization committed to
nonviolent civil disobedience to stop a US invasion in Nicaragua. She
coordinated the first National Sanctuary March and was the national coordinator
for the 1987 Shut Down of the CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA where over 600
people were arrested. She served on the national coordinating group for
the Supreme Court action where over 800 were arrested for gay and lesbian
rights and coordinated the 1990 action at the White House commemorating the
assassination of Archbishop Romero where over 500 were arrested. During
seven years as coordinator of the Washington Peace Center, Lisa organized
hundreds of actions on a range of issues both locally and nationally, including
the first Gulf War and Palestinian Intifada. She also helped lead an
extensive anti-racist process that successfully transformed the Peace Center
into a truly multicultural organization.
In 1993 Lisa joined the labor movement, bringing her
nonviolent direct action experience to the Justice for Janitors campaigns in
Washington DC, Denver and LA and to nursing home workers in Detroit and San
Francisco. She also worked with the United Auto Workers and provided support to
the Detroit newspaper strikers in developing their direct action capability.
The Justice for Janitors 1994-95 bridge blockades in Washington DC trained
hundreds of union members and staff from over 20 unions in nonviolent direct
action. Lisa has also provided support to hotel workers, farm workers and
laundry workers.She was the Southern,
CA coordinator for a statewide hospital campaign.Most recently Lisa helped coordinate a four week strike in
Houston for the Justice for Janitors campaign in 2006 that resulted in the best
first contract in the history of the union.In 2007, Lisa again helped coordinate a strike of security workers in
San Francisco, again leading to a record contract that set the bargaining
pattern for six more cities.
Since
1999, Lisa has worked extensively in the Global Justice movement. Lisa provided
trainings and was actively involved in the successful Shut-Down of the WTO in
Seattle on Nov. 30, 1999.She helped
found the Continental Direct Action Network and was instrumental in opposing
the WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico in 2003, where the talks also collapsed.She played a coordinating role at the
Republican and Democratic Conventions in 2000 and 2004 with her primary focus
on the 2000 Democratic Convention in LA and the 2004 Republican Convention in
New York City.
Lisa
led nonviolent direct action trainings and helped facilitate the street actions
at the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington DC (2000, 2001, 2002), Prague
(2000) and Ottawa (2002). She helped organize against the World Economic Forum
in New York (2002) and at the FTAA Summit in Quebec (2001) and in Miami (2003).Lisa has organized at the G8 Summits in
Genoa, Italy (2001), Calgary, Canada (2002), Evian, Switzerland (2003)
Brunswick, Georgia, USA (2004), Gleneagles, Scotland (2005) and most recently
in Heilingdamm, Germany (2007). In 2003, Lisa spent several weeks in
Palestine, working with the International Solidarity Movement acting as a human
shield for Palestinians in Jenin and Nablus and to prevent the demolition of
homes.
Lisa
has been active in trying to end the war in Iraq, serving on United for Peace
and Justice’s national steering committee since 2003. In 2005, Lisa provided
direct support to Cindy Sheehan at her encampment in the ditch in Crawford, TX
and then coordinated the Bring Them Home Now Tour, consisting of 3 caravans
that led to over 200 events in 52 cities in 28 states in 25 days.
After
the tour, Lisa went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and spent a year
working with Common Ground Relief.Common Ground brought over 12,000 volunteers to the region, brining
their labor and their resources to help residents return home.Working with the People’s Institute for
Survival and Beyond, thousands of mostly young people were provided
anti-racist/sexist training and Undoing Racism workshops and encouraged to
continue this kind of work in their own communities.Lisa coordinated a nonviolent direct action to open up and gut
the MLK Elementary School in the Lower 9th Ward in 2006. The ongoing leadership of the teachers and parents,
the State School Board was forced into repairing the school, which is now attended by over 600 kids!
In
2007, Lisa has provided training and support to many groups including the new
Students for a Democratic Society, the Algebra Project, the United Stadium
Workers, the Fair Immigrants Rights Movement, and the No War, No Warming
campaign. Lisa Fithian is 46 years old and is currently living
in Austin, TX. She is available for trainings, consultations and
organizing projects.Lisa continues to
work with people to access the power they need to build a more just and
peaceful community and world.
Ruby Perry is a teacher, organizer and community activist with 30 years of experience bringing people together to make change.Through Evolving Community, her consulting business, she works with diverse groups and organizations with a focus on building broad, effective coalitions and strong allies.Over the last ten years, she has worked to bring global awareness to local problems. She has been active since 2001 in the global justice movement, helping to organize creative public ritual actions in Quebec City, New York and Washington D.C. and, recently, working to build common goals within the anti-war and global justice movements.In July 2002, her affinity group traveled to occupied Palestine to participate in non-violent interventions in the West Bank.Since returning from the Middle East, she has done numerous presentations on non-violent resistance.
Ruby began her activist career in the early 70’s by organizing the campaign for a progressive candidate for governor ofVermont. She was active in the feminist movement, organizing groups of women to explore the meaning of power and personal voice in political change.She co-founded a food coop, making healthful, lowcostfood available to her rural community.She worked to build and sustain a collective child care center which became a regional model for building communitywhile providing high quality care for children.At the end of the decade, she was living in Seattle where she organized a collective of women printer-activists who wrote guidelines for women in non-traditional work.During the 80’s, she raised her daughter and organized a network of home-based childcare providers.She lived in France for 2 years and later facilitated educational exchanges between U.S. and French students.In the 90’s, she organized local citizen advisory committees on planning and zoning issues and built a coalition of state-wide consumer organizations to advocate for single payer healthcare.She developed and taught leadership empowerment training and education programs with the motto, “From the personal to the political.From the kitchen to the streets.”With a coalition of teachers, government officials and NGOs, she successfully advocated for changes in state policy on early childhood education.
Ruby is co-founder of an annual weeklong intensive camp which blends earth-based spirituality with political activism.She is a teacher, organizer and activist in the Reclaiming Tradition, bringing heart and spirit into political action. She is a skilled grant writer and program developer. She lives in northern Vermont with her long-time partner.
Starhawk is a lifelong activist and feminist, an author, lecturer, teacher, ritual maker, permaculturalist, and nonviolent direct action trainer.A leading voice of the ecofeminist and earth based spirituality movements, she is the author or coauthor of eight books, including The Spiral Dance, The Fifth Sacred Thing, The Twelve Wild Swans: a Journey into the Realm of Magic, Healing and Action, and her latest, Webs of Power, notes from the Global Uprising.
From organizing in her High School during the days of the Vietnam War, she has been active in social change movements for over thirty years.She has participated in and helped with training and organizing antinuclear actions at Diablo Canyon, Livermore Weapons Lab, Vandenberg Airforce Base and the Nevada Test Site among others.She travelled to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace in 1984 and has made two trips to El Salvador to do ongoing support work for sustainability programs.She works on countless environmental and land use issues and was a founder of the Cazadero Hills Land Use Council in Western Sonoma County.Her focus for the last three years has been the antiglobalization movement, training for and taking part in and doing trainings for many of the major summit actions.
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