WEFPJ was an all-women’s community of protest and challenge to violence and militarism housed on 52 acres bordering the Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York.
Commonly known as the Seneca Women’s Peace Camp or Seneca, the encampment was modeled after the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in England (1981-2000) where hundreds of British sisters were creating nonviolent protest in the face of the scheduled deployment of U.S. Cruise missiles.
Though the U.S. military steadfastly refused to either “confirm or deny” the presence of nuclear weapons at the Seneca Depot, the base was uniformly regarded as a storage site and departure point for both the Cruise and Pershing II weapons bound for Europe.
In the summer of 1983, 12,000 women from around the world participated in nonviolence trainings, direct actions and civil disobedience at Seneca resulting in 950 arrests.
In 1994 the encampment transitioned into Women’s PeaceLand, an intentional community whose purpose was to promote and implement the principles of peace, nonviolence and anti-oppression.
Due to limited resources and waning outside interest, the peace camp farm and land was reclaimed by Seneca County for back taxes in March 2006.
The Seneca Army Depot was approved for base realignment and closure in 1995 and closed in 2000. By 2008, however, a portion of the base was reopened to serve as a training ground for soldiers from Ft. Drum.
Were you at Seneca or Greenham, even for just an afternoon? Share your story with the rest of us by commenting on the blog. Click on comments below the post, write what you have to say in the box, click on other, write in your name, skip your web page (unless you have one...), type in the letters of the word verification (so advertising machines don't bombard us) and then click on publish your comments. YOU DID IT! If that doesn't work for you, you can always email us at peacecampherstory@yahoo.com
005 Becky Condon
007 Doreen Cornwall
008 Suzanne Sowinska
010 Jody Bear aka Jody Laine
014 Linda Field
015 Z aka Deborah Zubow
016 Susan Shachter
017 Barbara Reale
019 Brenda Miller
020 Otter aka Karen Escovitz
021 Sarra Lev
022 Laura Boswell Thornton
023 Maria Herlihy
024 Wolfgrrl aka Billijo Wolf
025 Andrea Doremus
027 Samoa aka Kim Blacklock
028 Helen Freedwomon aka Helen Friedman
029 Amy Bat Tzipora
030 Ruby Hohawk
031 Linci Comy
032 Janette Sperber
034 Dorothy Emerson
035 Nancy Clover
036 Michelle Murray
037 Grace Ross
038 Laura Flanders
039 Quinn Dilkes
040 Rosalie Regal
041 Charlotte Koons
042 Jennifer Miller
043 Helene Aylon
044 Alessandra Nichols
045 Martha Mollison
046 Mary Loehr
047 Clare Grady
048 Marilyn Rivchin
049 Susie Kossack
050 Ellie Rosenburg
051 Louise Cummings
052 Chris Huston
053 Tracy Sabo
054 Bryna Fireside
055 Lars Friend
056 Karen Edelstein
057 Cathy Sherwood
058 Cat Tague
059 Arora Crone
060 Judy Besemer
061 Sorrrel Hays
062 Marilyn Ries
063 Carol Baum
064 Barbara Gerber
065 Nancy Osborne
066 Carman Sivill Bradshaw
067 Karen Kerney
068 Julie Hammer
069 Diana Cramer
070 Mary Ann Zeppetello
071 Karen Mihalyi
072 Walter Putter
073 Claudia Gebhardt
074 Ruth Putter
075 Kathleen Rumpf
076 Andy Mager
077 Arlene Ahl
078 Linda DeStefano
079 Jane Begley
080 Beth Howe Miller
081 Renee-Noelle Felice
082 Sally Roesch Wagner
083 Sera Brown
084 Eugene Korvos
085 Mima Cataldo
086 Lucille Povero
087 Twilight
088 Sita Lang
089 Lynn Varricchio
090 Evelyn Bailey
091 Claire Parker
092 Estelle Coleman
093 Alice O'Malley
094 Hershe Michele Kramer
095 Louise Krasniewicz
096 Wanda Metcalf
097 Phenix Hearn
098 Pam Anndagah aka Flanigan
099 Leeann Irwin
100 Catherine Allport
101 Bobbie Falls
102 Jeanne Michele Charbonnet
103 Terri Fredlund
104 robin earth
105 Rachel Flanigan
106 Woody Blue
107 Miriasiem Barnes
108 Jasmine Laine Kramer
109 Penny Batelli
110 Terri Shay
111 Laura Briggs
BooKS
Common Women, Uncommon Practices: The Queer Feminisms of Greenham by Sasha Roseneil, Casssell, London, 2000.
Greenham Women Everywhere: Dreams, Ideas and Actions from the Women's Peace Movement by Alice Cook and Gwyn Kirk - South End Press, 1983.
Nuclear Summer: The Clash of Communities at the Seneca Women's Peace Encampment by Louise Krasniewicz - Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
Panhandling Papers by Kady - Common Wealth Printing, 1989.
Prisons That Could Not Hold by Barbara Deming - Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1995.
Rocking the Ship of State: Toward a Feminist Peace Politics edited by Adrienne Harris and Ynestra King - Boulder: Westview Press, 1989.
Walking to Greenham: How the Peace-camp began and the Cold War ended by Ann Pettitt - Honno: South Glamorgan, Wales, 2006.
We are Ordinary Women: A Chronicle of the Puget Sound Women's Peace Camp by Participants of the Puget Sound Women's Peace Camp - The Seal Press, Seattle, 1985.
We Are the Web: The Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice by Catherine Allport - Artemis Project, NYC, 1984.
The Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice: Images and Writings edited by Mima Cataldo, Ruth Putter, Byrna Fireside and Elaine Lytel - Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987.
MuSiC
Peace Camp Sings, 1987. Tallapoosa Music, New York, NY.
The Great Peace March: Wild Wimmin for Peace, 1986. To order, call: 412-361-3022
The Average Dyke Band: Songs from Seneca, December 1985.
ViDeo
Every Woman Here: Remnants of Seneca 1982-2006. Peace Encampment Herstory Project, 2007. 33 min.
C.D.: the Ritual of Civil Disobedience. Sorrel Hays, Marilyn Ries and Sara Halprin, 1987. 23 min.
Stronger Than Before: The Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice. Women's Video Collective, 1983. 26 min.
aRTiCLeS
Deming, Barbara. Dec. 1984. "Building the 'Beloved Community.'" The Nonviolent Activist.
Doremus, Andrea, compiler. Fall 1999. "Seneca Stories: Responses to a call for Memories." Iris. pp. 36-47.
Finkelstein, S. Naomi. Winter 1994/95. "McRunes and Mazdas." Sinister Wisdom, #54, pp. 72-79.
Joy, Margaretta. April-August 2003. "We are the Web": Letter Writing and the 1980s Women's Peace Movement," Prose Studies, Vol. 26, #1-2, pp. 196-218. Routledge.
McDaniel, Judith. "One Summer at Seneca: A Lesbian Feminist Looks Back in Anger." Heresies, #20, pp. 6-11.
PaPeRS
Chmielewski, Wendy E.: "Resisting Nuclear Madness: The Utopian Vision of the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice," presented at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, New Brunswick, New Jersey, February 6, 2001.
2 comments:
Thank you. We sang this at my wife Andy's funeral (she was 28), and some of her ashes were scattered near the Orange Gate where she had stayed.
I think she found a lot of peaceful strength there.
All the best
Not to be disrespectful or anything BUT we sang that song to death. We never got the tempo the way Naomi intended and...
Anyone recall the "Alternate lyrics" I forget who-all was involved, i was one of those troubelmakeres but I don't take full credit because it was a work of collaboration:
" You can't kill the Spirit,
It is ju-u-u-ust like this song,
boring and long,
it go-oes o-ou-oun an ou-oun and ou-oun"
Cassandra White
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