Catonsville Nine

The Nine were:

• Father Philip Berrigan, a Josephite priest
• Father Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest
• Br. David Darst, a De La Salle Christian Brother
• John Hogan
• Tom Lewis, an artist
• Marjorie Bradford Melville, a former Maryknoll sister
• Thomas Melville, a former Maryknoll priest
• George Mische
• Mary Moylan

George Mische and Father Phil Berrigan were prime organizers of the Catonsville Nine. The organizing process was very democratic, with lengthy meetings and voting by raised hands.^{[citation needed]}

Tom Lewis had been sentenced to six years for a prior protest one week after Catonsville, and had three and a half years added to be served concurrently.^[8] Fr. Daniel Berrigan was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison to begin on April 9, 1970. According to Anke Wessels, director of Cornell's Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy, "On the very day he was scheduled to begin his prison term, he left his office keys on a secretary's desk in Anabel Taylor Hall and disappeared."^[9] Cornell marked Berrigan's impending imprisonment by conducting a weekend-long "America Is Hard to Find" event April 17–19, 1970,^[10] which included a public appearance by the then-fugitive Berrigan before a crowd of 15,000 in Barton Hall.^[11] On August 11, 1970, the FBI found and arrested Berrigan at the home of William Stringfellow and Anthony Towne.^[12] He was released from Danbury prison in 1972.^[13] Lewis was released in 1971.^[8]

The "Nine" inspired many other anti-draft and anti-military actions in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Milwaukee 14, D.C. 9, Silver Spring 3, Chicago 8, Harrisburg 7, Camden 28. Participants sometimes remained at the scene to be arrested, sometimes they departed in order to avoid arrest. It is unknown how many persons were not drafted because of these actions.

As of 2009^[update] the movement had morphed into the continuing Plowshares movement with an emphasis on nuclear weapons. The group's actions, along with the Catonsville Nine and earlier actions, have been detailed online by Jonah House.

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• A book A Chronology of Plowshares Disarmament Actions (1980–2003) was compiled by Arthur Laffin.
• The Catonsville Nine and Baltimore Four were the subject of the 2013 documentary Hit & Stay by Joe Tropea and Skizz Cyzyk.
• The 1971 play The Trial of The Catonsville Nine—Gordon Davidson, director
• The 1972 film The Trial of The Catonsville Nine—Gordon Davidson, director; Gregory Peck, producer
• A documentary film, Holy Outlaw, about Daniel Berrigan—exists only on 16 mm.
• A documentary about the "Plowshares 8"—In the King of Prussia by Emile d'Antonio
• A documentary film about the event, Investigation of a Flame, was produced in 2001 by the filmmaker Lynne Sachs.
• The Chairman Dances' song "Catonsville 9 (Thomas and Marjorie)",^[14][15] in which “Thomas and Marjorie are depicted on their drive to Catonsville with homemade napalm on their laps, imagining their marriage in and after prison.”^[16]
• Dar Williams's song, "I Had No Right", from her album The Green World, is about the trial of the Catonsville Nine.
• Adrienne Rich's poem "The Burning of Paper Instead of Children" makes numerous references to the Catonsville Nine and includes an epigraph from Daniel Berrigan during the trial ("I was in danger of verbalizing my moral impulses out of existence").
• The song "War No More" describes the draft action of the Catonsville Nine. It was composed by Joe DeFilippo and recorded and performed by the R.J. Phillips Band.^[17]
• The Chip Taylor song "Nine Soldiers In Baltimore", an inspirational account^[18]
• A fictionalized depiction of the 1968 Catonsville incident occurs in the 2023 Showtime miniseries, Fellow Travelers.^[19]

• Protests of 1968